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The Town Hall 



An Account of the 
CEL EBRATION 
By THE TOWN of 
LINCOLN, MASS" 
April 23rd, 1904, of the 
150th Anniversary of its 
INCORPORATION 

1754- 1904 




Lincoln, Mass'" 

PRINTED FOR THE TOWN 

1905 



SEP 5 1906 
D. ofD. 



FOREWORD 

At a town meeting held July ii, 1903, the atten- 
tion of the town was called to the fact that the fol- 
lowing year would complete a century and a half of 
the town's corporate existence. The following resolu- 
tion was unanimously passed : " Resolved, That it is 
appropriate that the town take some notice of the one 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation 
next year. Therefore, Voted, That the Selectmen and 
the Committee on Claims be a committee to consider 
the matter and report to the town at some future 
meeting some plan for the proper observance of the 
day." 

At the annual town meeting held March 7, 
1904, it was voted, " That the whole subject be left 
to a committee consisting of the Selectmen and the 
Committee on Claims and C. Lee Todd, Walter 
W. Johnson and Harry Russ." The sum of five 
hundred dollars was appropriated for the use of the 
committee. 

The celebration, an account of which follows, is 
of great importance to the town in many ways. So 
far as the records show or memory serves, the town 
has never before celebrated its natal day. The eflFort 
has been made in connection with this occasion to pre- 
serve and put in permanent form what has come down 

iii 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

to us of record and tradition connected with the history 
of the town ; and it is desired to make the printing of 
the records, vital statistics, and other original matter 
of value now in the town's possession relating to the 
first century of its existence a part of the celebration 
of this one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
town's incorporation, and steps to this end have 
already been taken. The roll of the men of Lincoln 
who have served their country as soldiers has also 
been included in this volume. 

The committee having in charge the arrangements 
for the observance of this anniversary have sought to 
make the exercises of interest and value not only to 
those who took part in them, but also to subsequent 
generations through having the proceedings printed. 
The illustrations that have been included in this ' 
volume have been chosen with a view to represent- 
ing the Lincoln of the past as well as of the present, 
though all of the houses whose pictures are here 
given are standing to-day. 

The celebration began at daybreak with the ring- 
ing of the church bell and the firing of cannon. The 
day could not have been more propitious, for the 
sun rose clear and, though there was no rye waving 
in the fields as by tradition it was on the memorable 
19th of April, 1775, the fields were green and the 
maples and elms were in blossom. The village street 
was gay with streamers of lavender and white, and 
"Old Glory " floated above the trees on the Com- 
mon. The day brought back many of Lincoln's sons 

iv 



FOREWORD 

and daughters, and afforded opportunity for the ex- 
change of friendly greetings. The approach of the 
Governor was heralded by the ringing of the bell and 
the firing of cannon. Before the appointed hour 
arrived the church was filled with townspeople and 
others from neighboring towns, and as the Gov- 
ernor and the others who were to take part in the 
exercises of the afternoon entered, the audience rose 
and stood until they were seated on the platform. 
The program given herewith was then carried out as 
arranged. 

For the Banquet and the dancing the interior of 
the Town Hall had been festooned with long strips 
of bunting, lavender, white, and yellow, the colonial 
colors, with groups of Japanese lanterns. A colored 
sketch of a Puritan man and maiden placed in front 
of the gallery recalled the aspect of our ancestors of 
1754. A long table was spread upon the platform, at 
which were seated the Toastmaster, his Excellency 
Governor Bates, the orator of the day, members of 
the boards of selectmen of Lincoln, Lexington, Con- 
cord, and Weston, and others who were to speak. 
The entire floor was occupied by long tables made 
bright with roses, carnations, and green vines. Two 
hundred and forty-three persons sat down to the 
Banquet. A band of music placed in the gallery 
played at intervals during the supper. A mark of 
special distinction in the form of a blue ribbon badge 
was conferred upon all persons who were descendants 
of families living in Lincoln when the town was in- 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

corporated, and formed a conspicuous feature of the 
celebration. 

At the close of the after-dinner speaking the hall 
was made ready for dancing; the band moved to 
the platform ; the gallery filled with onlookers ; and 
soon the floor was taken possession of by the young 
people, who made the most of the time that was left 
until the hour of midnight and the entrance of the 
Sabbath brought the festivities of the day to a close. 



CONTENTS 



Program 


xi 


Invocation ....... 


5 


Anthem ....... 


7 


Words of Welcome ..... 


9 


" A Milestone Planted " — Address of Hon, 




Charles Francis Adams 


12 


Appendix ....... 


"3 


Anniversary Poem ..... 


147 


Anthem ........ 


156 


The Banquet 




Address by Mr. Storey .... 


161 


Remarks by Governor Bates .... 


164 


Mr. Adams . . . 


168 


Mr. Baker ..... 


169 


Mr. Flint ..... 


173 


Mr. Farrar 


177 


Mr. Bradley .... 


178 


Dr. Emerson .... 


182 


Dr. DeNormandie 


187 


Mr. Hodges ..... 


191 


Letters 




From Mr. Smith ...... 


197 


Mr. Stearns 


200 




213 


Roll of Soldiers 


235 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Town Hall 

View of Street looking north 

View of Street looking south 

The William Hartwell House 

The Samuel Hartwell House 

The Farrar House . 

The Codman House 

The Garfield House . 

The Nelson House 

The Flint House 

The Dr. Russell House 

The Foster House 

The Dr. Stearns House 

The Hoar House 

The Eveleth House 

The Smith House 

The Adams House 

Brendan . 

The Paul RiaVERE Tablet 



Frontispiece 
I 

9 
24 
38 
52 
66 
80 

94 
108 
122 
136 
150 
164 
178 
192 
206 
220 

233 



ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM 



ONE HUNDRED AND 
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE 

INCORPORATION 

OF THE 

TOWN OF LINCOLN 

SATURDAY, APRIL TWENTY-THIRD 
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR 



program 

2.30 p. M. IN FIRST PARISH CHURCH 

ORGAN PRELUDE Mrs. Charles H. Trask 

PRAYER Rev. Edward E. Bradley 

ANTHEM, "Jehovah Reigns" Mendelssohn 

WORDS OF WELCOME Mr. Charles S. Smith 

(Chairman of Selectmen) 

ADDRESS Hon. Charles Francis Adams 

HYMN Words by Mrs. Sarah Phillips Bradley 

Tune : " Park Street " 

ANNIVERSARY POEM Mr. Julius E. Eveleth 

ANTHEM, " God of Our Fathers " Schnecker 

BENEDICTION Rev. Henry C. Cunningham 

5. JO p. M. IN BEMIS HALL 

BANQUET Mr. Moorfield Storey, Toastmaster 

8.30 P. M. IN BEMIS HALL 

DANCING 



HYMN 

Sarah Phillips Bradley 

O God, as this the natal day 
Of our fair town we celebrate. 

We lift our hearts to thee and pray- 
That on thy guidance we may wait. 

Our fathers crossed the stormy main. 
The pathless wilderness they trod. 

They sought not any earthly gain. 
But freedom here to worship God. 

Two hundred years ago and more 
To this fair hillside's sunny slope 

Came sturdy men who hardship bore 
With dauntless heart and steadfast hope. 

They toiled and suffered, fought and won. 

Nor counted any cost too high 
That they may hand from sire to son 

A heritage of liberty. 

O God, our fathers' guide and strength 

Through troublous years of storm and strife, 

Thou who to our loved land at length 
Hast brought a prosperous peaceful life ; 

Grant us, the sons of noble sires 

Who in thy house to-day have met. 

To keep alive thine altar fires, 

" Lest we forget, lest we forget ! " 
I 



ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE 

CHARLES S. SMITH 
EDWARD F. FLINT 
ANTHONY J. DOHERTY 
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 
MOORFIELD STOREY 
JULIUS E. EVELETH 
WALTER W. JOHNSON 
HARRY RUSS 
C. LEE TODD 



Fiew of Street lookitig North 
(p. 215) 




ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



INVOCATION 

Rev. Edward E. Bradley 

Almighty and ever-living God, thou who art the 
God of our fathers, we avouch thee to be our God, 
and desire to acknowledge thee in all our ways. As 
we have come together to-day to do honor to the 
men and women who have lived here before us, 
and especially to commemorate the virtues and the 
achievements of those who first settled the town, 
we pray that their character may be so clearly and 
justly set before us as to call forth afresh our ad- 
miration and our gratitude. We thank thee for the 
priceless heritage of our New England ancestry. 
We glory in the high motives that brought our 
fathers to these shores ; in their labors and strug- 
gles and sacrifices to secure religious freedom and 
political independence ; in the wisdom with which 
they laid deep and broad and sure the foundations 
of our national government. We pray that our re- 
membrance of these men to-day, and of the prin- 
ciples for which they lived and died, may serve to 
sober our minds, to elevate our thoughts, to send 
us forth to live in our day and generation with the 
same high consecration of purpose and of deed that 
actuated them. 

May thy blessing and favor be upon our beloved 

5 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Commonwealth, and upon all within her borders 
who seek to do justice and to establish righteous- 
ness. Finally grant us all, we beseech thee, the 
wisdom and strength so to fulfil the tasks thou hast 
given us to perform in town and in State that we 
can pray in all good conscience, " Establish thou 
the work of our hands upon us ; yea, the work of 
our hands establish thou it." And thy Name shall 
have all the praise, now and forever. Amen. 



ANTHEM 

JEHOVAH REIGNS 

Jehovah reigns ! Mighty is He, and strong His 
arm ! 

Come forth, ye hosts ! with Him to lead, 

What foe shall we fear ? What harm ? 

Yes, He doth reign ; Power supreme is His, and 
Right, 

March on for Him, exult in Him, 

And sing with the Hosts of Light. 

In faith stand firm, victory waits for all 

Who obey and answer Him when He doth call, 

Our God doth reign. Power supreme He holds and 
Right. 

Arise ! come forth ! Exult in Him, rejoice with the 
Hosts of Light. 

Oh, His mercy endures ; He is Love, He is Love, 

All the earth doth rejoice in His care. 

Field and flower, hill and vale, and the sea, and the 
sky. 

Are the wonders that He doth prepare. 

Infinite Power ! ever supreme, He is glorious ! 

Humble are we children of earth. He is victorious ! 

Let praise unto His throne be ascending, from mor- 
tals who adore. 

Let the Light of His Mansion supernal 

7 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Shine upon us, blessed by Him, ever eternal ! 

Let all He has created acknowledge His name for- 
ever more. 

The flowers obeying His own command. 

Their brightness give to adorn the land. 

The sun's bright rays on earth's green verdure shine, 

To aid the grain, to cheer the spreading vine. 

The year He crowns with bounteous yield; 

His watchful care doth spread o'er hill and field. 

Our God doth reign ; Power supreme is His, and 
Right, 

March on for Him, exult in Him, and sing with the 
Hosts of Light. 

In faith stand firm; valiant ones, victory waits for 
all 

Who obey and answer Him when He doth call. 

Yes, He doth reign over the world and all that live, 

Of life and light, the Source supreme. 

What praise can we mortals give ! 

And lo ! in all His hand hath made. 

His marvellous wisdom there is e'er displayed. 

Earth, sea, and air proclaim His word. 

While all obey the voice of Him, their Lord. 

Jehovah reigns ! Mighty is He and strong His arm ! 

Yes, He doth reign. Supreme is He and right. 

Arise, ye hosts, exult in Him ! Arise, ye hosts, to 
praise again ! 

Jehovah reigns with power supreme ! He reigns ! 
He reigns ! 



l^iezv of Street looking South 
(p. 215) 



WORDS OF WELCOME 

By Mr. Charles S. Smith, Chairman of Selectmen 

Friends and Fellow Citizens : We meet to-day 
to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the incorpo- 
ration of this town. It is my privilege, in behalf 
of the town, to extend to you all a most cordial 
welcome, and to express the hope that the day will 
be to you all both pleasant and profitable. As we 
refresh our memories with a review of the early 
history of the town, and study the characters and 
lives of the early settlers and incorporators, we shall 
be anew impressed with the value of our inheritance, 
and I trust with the duty imposed upon us of trans- 
mitting it unimpaired to our children. 

We meet to-day in this house erected on the site 
of the first meeting-house, which was used for all 
public functions : religious, political, and social, for 
more than eighty years. We can but admire the 
wisdom and good sense of the fathers, first, in choos- 
ing homes on these beautiful hillside slopes and 
fertile meadows, and then selecting this matchless 
site, accessible to all for the preaching of the gospel 
and the worship of God, which things were of fun- 
damental importance in their life. The foundations 
on which our fathers built were good and broad. 
We may broaden them, but can we better them ? 

9 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Besides good common sense^ the incorporators of 
this town had another trait, indispensable then, and 
indispensable now, if true success is to be attained, 
— perseverance. This trait is forcibly illustrated by 
the fact that for twenty years they labored to have 
this town set off from the towns of Lexington, 
Concord, and Weston as a separate municipality. 
Beginning in 1734, and partially succeeding in the 
intervening years, it was not till 1754 that their 
labors were rewarded, and a separate town, named 
" Lincoln," became an accomplished fact, a blessed 
reality ; blessed to them, and we trust to all suc- 
ceeding generations. 

Besides the two traits already alluded to, viz., 
their regard for the worship of God, and their per- 
sistence in seeking political independence, there was 
manifest among them a high degree of public spirit, 
first forcibly illustrated by the gift by a few men of 
the first Meeting House to the Precinct. Note the 
language of the givers : 

" We, the subscribers, inhabitants of the Precinct 
set off from Concord, Lexington and Weston, being 
desirous to promote the public preaching of the 
word of God in said Precinct, and willing for the 
ease of others, the inhabitants of said Precinct, to 
take upon ourselves more than our proportion of 
the great charge of setting up the public worship 
of God in said Precinct, have at our own proper cost 
and charge, erected a house for the public use of 
the Precinct, and have, in part, finished the same, 
which house standeth near the centre of said Pre- 

10 



WORDS OF WELCOME 

cinct and is made use of as a public meeting-house, 
— do, by these presents, freely, fully and absolutely 
give, grant, alienate, convey and confirm the said 
house to said Precinct." We may well believe that 
it was a full, free offering of love to the people. 
These traits have ever been exemplified in the his- 
tory of the town, and may the day be far removed 
when they cease to exist and rule in the community. 

The town has ever received the gifts of her sons 
with gratitude, whether of money, buildings, or self- 
denying service, and has always reciprocated as far 
as possible. It is recorded that for the valuable 
services rendered by the Hon. Chambers Russell, 
who gave to the town its name : " That Chambers 
Russell, Esq., have liberty to choose his pew in the 
Precinct Meeting House where he pleases, and 
build it when he pleases." I doubt not. Honored 
Sir, that a like privilege would be freely granted to 
you for the valued and valuable services you have 
rendered to the town. 

I take pleasure in presenting our esteemed towns- 
man, Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Orator of the 
day. 

Mr. Adams then proceeded to deliver the following ad- 
dress. 



A MILESTONE PLANTED' 

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial ; and ye shall keep 
it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it 
a feast by an ordinance for ever. — Exodus xii, 1 4. 

Why are we here gathered ? Why, old and young, 
have we left plow and counter and desk, — the fur- 
row, the school and the office, — proclaiming high- 
holiday in Lincoln, and thus — men, women and 
children — met under a common roof-tree ? The 
answer to this question, put at the threshold of the 
day's observances, will give its character to my ad- 
dress, and upon it impose limitations. It is Lincoln's 
birthday ! — the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of its existence as a town. We have met to com- 
memorate the event. We are here to plant a mile- 
stone, — a memorial for other times and subsequent 
generations. It will mark the ending of one cycle 
in our existence as a community, and the beginning 
of another. 

A dozen years ago I was called upon, where I then 
lived, to bear the burden of the day, so far as the 
preparation of the conventional address was con- 

* This address, considerably abbreviated, occupied in delivery one 
hour and fifteen minutes. It was subsequently revised. The portions 
omitted in delivery are here included ; and very considerable additions 
have also been made to it. 

12 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

cerned, on a like occasion. It was at Quincy, not my 
own birthplace, but where I and mine originated, 
where — bone of its bone, flesh of its flesh — we for 
two hundred and fifty years had lived, and, dying, 
gone back to the soil. Responding, though with 
extreme reluctance, to the call thus made upon me, 
I took occasion to comment on the character of such 
commemorations, — their sameness of tone, their 
self-laudation and lack of individuality, only exceeded 
in weariness by their constant succession. The his- 
torical deliverances customary in such cases, I not 
untruly asserted, were made up largely of ancestor 
worship, combined with the ill-considered laudation 
of a state of things, social, material and educational, 
which, if brought back and imposed upon us now, 
would be pronounced unendurable. Of those decep- 
tive, as well as imaginary, portrayals, I declared I had 
both heard and read more than enough. Like most 
conventional observances, they at one time had served 
a purpose, and a useful purpose ; for in them, un- 
consciously quite as much as with intent, was recorded 
much of historical worth, which otherwise would 
probably have perished, — not only local traditions, 
personal memories, the story of the quickly forgotten 
past, its friendships, its feuds, its great aspirations 
and its small accomplishment, but phases of thought 
and expression. Records of the time gone by, those 
discourses and addresses were also mirrors of what 
was then in vogue. This, however, was in another 
age of the world, — the days which knew not news- 
papers or periodicals, the town history or the histori- 
es 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

cal society. But, though that period is gone, the 
commemoration address abides ; and so the old straw 
is everlastingly threshed over, though few indeed are 
the grains of wheat resultant therefrom. Each age 
has, or ought to have, some mode of expression 
peculiar to itself. The occasional historical discourse 
and the formal memorial address were of an age that 
is past. Let them go with it. 

He, I admit, would be over bold who, standing, 
in this year 1904, on the threshold of a century, 
should undertake to forecast the form of expression 
to which the century will, in its full maturity, addict 
itself; but I do not think it will be platform oratory. 
That was characteristic of the nineteenth century, as 
pulpit deliverance was characteristic of the eighteenth; 
and, speaking frankly as well as honestly, though not 
without study of both, I do not know which of the 
two modes of expression, taken as wholes, was the 
drearier and the emptier. The theological literature 
of the eighteenth century is vast, and, in largest part, 
devoid both of interest and value ; but, on the other 
hand, retrospect reveals a shallowness and affectation 
of thought, combined with a tinsel of rhetoric, about 
the platform oratory of the nineteenth century, which 
goes far in a comparative way to a rehabilitation of 
what went before. 

Thus I felt then, so I feel now ; and so, twelve 
years ago, 1 argued to a friend of mine, — one of the 
antique Quincy stock. He, however, took a differ- 
ent view of the subject. Picking me up at once, and 
assenting to much of my criticism, he refused to 

H 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

accept my conclusions, arguing that it was wholly- 
inexpedient on these occasions to dispense with the 
time-honored address. It was he who then made 
use of that milestone simile. In Quincy, and along 
the old Coast-road, as it was once called, running 
from Salem through Boston to Plymouth, we had a 
number of those landmarks, bearing upon their faces 
eighteenth century distances, dates and initials ; and, 
with them, my friend and I were familiar. Those 
old colonial way-metes, rough-hewn at the begin- 
ning and now furrowed and gnawed by the tooth of 
time, — as they stood there aslant at the roadside, 
with inscriptions no longer wholly legible through 
moss growth and weather stain, — had marked for 
generations of travellers the distances traversed. And 
so the printed pages to which I so slightingly alluded 
told for all future time of some point a community 
had reached in a journey knowing no end. Here 
those composing that community had paused for a 
space, and, resting in their march, cast a glance back- 
ward over the road by which they had come, and 
forward over that yet to be traversed. " At such a 
time," my old friend, now become my mentor, went 
on, " we are, or ought to be, a world unto ourselves. 
Why take thought, on this our birthday, of other 
people, or their kindred observances, or burden our- 
selves because of posterity ? What matters it who 
are looking on, or what to-morrow's * Times ' or 
' Herald ' may have to say of that now taking place ? 
Those after us here dwelling will, to remote gen- 
erations even, give heed to the utterances of to-day ; 

15 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

its record will, by them, not be forgotten. Let that 
suffice ! This is our anniversary. Thus far have we 
got in our journey ; and, throwing off our burdens 
for the moment, we here raise a memorial such as 
it is, which to those — be they many or few — who 
care to observe, will tell them that here we rested as 
we passed a centennial." 

On consideration I had to admit that my friend 
had the best of the argument. His was the saner, the 
more sensible view. So I helped plant that Quincy 
milestone ; ' and, recalling the lesson then received, 
I am here to plant the Lincoln milestone to-day. 
But the circumstances are not the same. Then I 
spoke as one to the manner born, — I was, as 1 al- 
ways had been, part of the halted column. Of the 
town family, its names, its localities, its traditions, 
were familiar to me. It is not so here; it never can 
be so. I may be a useful citizen in Lincoln; and 
hereafter, as for ten years past, it may be my home. 
I hope it will be. But here I never can be other 
than a new-comer, — at most and best, a child of 
adoption. As such, I am conscious I speak to-day; 
and what i say needs must lack that insight, that 
sympathy, that absorption of the individual in the 
community possible only amid those surroundings 
where " Heaven," as Wordsworth tells us, "lies about 
us in our infancy." So I beseech your patience while, 

' The Centennial Milestone: an Address in Commemoration of the 
One Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of Quincy, Massachu- 
setts, delivered July 4, 1892. Concerning the friend "of the antique 
Quincy stock," see p. 44 of the address above referred to. 

16 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

not wholly of Lincoln, I speak about Lincoln, to 
Lincoln. 

I shall indulge in no generalities or abstractions, 
much less attempt flights of eloquence. I propose 
to talk of Lincoln, and of Lincoln only ; and that in 
simple fashion. But the audience I address is not 
here; so far from being here, it is remote, as yet 
unborn. The message framed to-day is to the Lin- 
coln of the next century. At the earliest it is to the 
Lincoln of 1954, — those who will then gather on 
this hillside to celebrate the bi-centennial of the town. 
It is not often in these days of the printing-press 
and tumult of tongues that any one can nourish even 
a hope, no matter how delusive, that what he says or 
puts on paper will be remembered to-morrow. In- 
stant oblivion, as a rule, awaits. But the proceedings 
of to-day are exceptional ; they will surely be recalled. 
The interest in what we say or do is not widespread, 
— indeed, it is confined to a very narrow circle ; — 
and yet what we this day do and say will abide. 
Within that circle, the passage of time will make it 
more curious, more interesting, ever more perma- 
nent. It also will be the time-eaten, weather-stained 
inscription on a moss-covered milestone. 

The better to realize this, let us put ourselves in 
the place of those who are gone, — those we to-day 
commemorate. To dwellers in it the present is al- 
together commonplace, and its daily environment, 
as distinguished from its exceptional events, is 
deemed uninteresting. It was so in 1754; it is so 
in 1904; it will be so in 2054. What, in 1754, 

17 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

their vision dwelt on every day and all the time was 
so familiar that it never occurred to those then 
living here that a generation to which it would all 
be remote and strange and curiously quaint would 
presently people the soil. So they made no record. 
Yet what they did not dream of, long since came to 
pass ; and, to-day, there is for us no Lincoln start- 
ing-post ! Vainly we seek even a vestige of the 
landmark. 

While we can send a message forward, we cannot 
send one back. But suppose for a moment we could, 
— suppose that our voice could reach Chambers 
Russell, John Hoar, Benjamin Brown and Stephen 
Weston, gathered at the house of Edward Flint, 
close to this spot, on the 26th of May, 1746, there 
and then holding the first precinct meeting, — what 
would our message be ? If we can frame that mes- 
sage, we can probably form some idea of the similar 
message our descendants in 2054 would be likely to 
send back to us here. Unquestionably, we would 
say to Chambers Russell, and the rest, including the 
Rev. William Lawrence, — "Tell us of yourselves 
and of the Lincoln in which you lived. We do not 
care to listen to sermons on dead and forgotten 
theological issues, to disquisitions on the rights of 
man, or to your conception of the everlasting veri- 
ties ; — we want to know about you, and the local- 
ity in which you lived and had your being, — your 
homes and your meeting-house, your, school, with 
its text-books, your church and its pastor, the roads, 
the means of conveyance, the clothes you wore, the 

18 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

social life you led, and the bones of contention 
amongst you ! You once lived, and lived here ! Of 
you and yours not a vestige remains save a few old 
houses, and the stones in the village burying-ground 
behind our new town hall ; not a garment, scarcely 
a utensil or book, hardly a printed record. What 
you thought the commonplace of every-day life the 
passage of years has made quaint. Tell us, then, of 
yourselves and of the old-time, the original Lincoln, 
— long since dead and buried and forgotten." 

As it is with us, so, rest assured, will it be with 
our posterity. That fact dictates the character of 
the inscription to be cut on the milestone we now 
plant. 

And first of that forgotten past, — that remote 
heretofore with which there is no connection, whether 
telephonic or spiritual. To our posterity it will be 
even more shadowy than it is to us ; and to try to 
revive it, — to inject such degree of life as is possible 
into those long-buried bones, a ray of animation into 
eyes for more than a century glazed and sightless, 
is part of the task to which I to-day must address 
myself. 

In the case of every Massachusetts town the past 
divides itself into two portions, the prehistoric and 
the historic, — the last a mere fringe hanging on the 
garment, yet in great degree conditioned on the first. 
Our records of Lincoln, — our traditions even, are 
but of yesterday. They go back only to 1744, or 
possibly a century or so more at most, — covering 
the lives of five, or, perhaps, eight, generations of 

19 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

children of the soil. Beyond and behind stretches 
the vast unknown, a very Sahara of time, to the his- 
torian forever a sealed book, and only in degree and 
through patient study explorable by the geologist. It 
reaches back to that remote ice age only in traces vis- 
ible, but which gave to all the region hereabout the 
character it bears to-day, dictating in advance for 
each locality the products of its soil, the vocations of 
its people, and the lines of its thoroughfares ; — so, 
commerce was decreed for Boston, mills for Lowell 
and Lawrence, agriculture for Sudbury, Concord and 
Belmont, a railroad for the valley of the Charles, and 
forests of oak and pine for Lincoln. In our homes, 
our vocations and ourjourneyings, — in the field and 
on the road, in locating a way or a mill, or choosing 
a site for a house, we do but follow those lines, — 
whether of least resistance, or of grace and beauty, 
— which were laid down for us here in New Eng- 
land long before the idea of the pyramids got a lodg- 
ment in the brains of the Pharaohs, or the legend 
of Eden assumed shape in the imagination of the 
pilgrims of Horeb. 

In his sketch of the history of Lincoln, Mr. 
Wheeler makes this statement : " The hill on which 
the [Lincoln] meeting-house stands is four hundred 
and seventy feet above high-water mark at Boston, 
and though there are other hills of greater magni- 
tude, it is believed to be the highest land in [Middle- 
sex] county whereon men have built themselves 
habitations. . . . Brooks which are tributaries to 
the Concord, Charles and Shawshine rise and flow 

20 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

out, but not a tubful of water comes into the town 
from any source except the rains and dews of heaven." 
Here, in fewest possible words, is the whole secret 
told of the early settlement and slow development of 
Lincoln. They resulted from natural conditions ; 
and, talking of the history of Lincoln, is it not star- 
tling as well as curious to reflect that, of the seventy 
or eighty centuries which have elapsed since the nat- 
ural features of the township became exactly what 
we see them to-day, a little less than two cover the 
history which interests us and which we so minutely 
investigate, — the other sixty-eight or seventy-eight 
centuries, a few less or many more, are an absolute 
blank ! Yet, through them all, Lincoln hill and 
Sandy Pond, the Walden woods and Fairhaven-bay, 
were as to-day they are. We men only are here as 
of yesterday ! 

When Lincoln was incorporated, — in those days 
of Chambers Russell and William Lawrence, John 
Hoar and Edward Flint, — the word geology had 
no well-defined meaning. The scientific study of the 
earth, and of the physical changes it has undergone, 
had not begun. Indeed, the first chapter of the book 
of Genesis disposed of that matter, and disposed of 
it summarily. It was all delightfully simple. The 
earth was six thousand years old ; it was created in 
six days, and in the form in which we now know it. 
To question this was impious. The deluge was ac- 
cepted as an undeniable historic fact ; but the actual 
occurrence of an ice age was a thing as yet undreamed 
of even by the most advanced and sceptical of scien- 

21 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

tists. Since 1754, and almost entirely within the last 
half of the period, the geologist has revealed a few 
facts which, while interesting in themselves, are still 
more interesting in the possibility of future discov- 
eries they suggest. But upon the basis of what is 
already known, the remoter past may, for Lincoln 
as for other like dots on the globe's surface, be to 
a degree restored. During that remoter period pre- 
ceding the last ice age, a period to be measured by 
aeons and cycles and not by centuries or millenaries 
even, all the region hereabout, not Middlesex merely 
but Massachusetts and New England as well, were 
in the formative stage ; — then the rocks were mixed 
and hardened below the surface ; and the surface it- 
self was slowly shaped by rain and the flow of rivers, 
until its general form was not greatly unlike that of 
to-day. Instead of being some sixteen miles from the 
ocean, Lincoln is supposed to have then been some 
sixty miles from it ; while its altitude above the level 
of the sea was more than twice what it now is. The 
continental coast line seems to have then run well 
outside of what we call Cape Ann and Cape Cod. 
The site of present Boston was forty miles inland, 
and a very considerable river with its affluents, the 
predecessor of the Merrimac, drained all the country 
hereabouts. Flowing down from the New Hamp- 
shire hills and across the present Middlesex water- 
shed, it found an outlet, it is surmised, not where the 
Merrimac empties itself, but through the channels 
of what are now the Mystic or the Charles. Then 
came the long arctic cycle, with its sea of glacial ice. 

22 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

The dreary waste reached back to the very pole, — 
one unbroken area of frozen matter, — soil, gravel 
and ice, — its surface dotted by boulders, like an 
army moving forward, in New England, towards the 
southeast in silent, pitiless march. This vast and 
indescribable desolation was, it is supposed, a mile 
or more in solid depth, overtopping the summits of 
our hills by thousands of feet. When all this region, 
the crest of Mt. Washington even, was submerged 
by the sea of ice, Lincoln lay simply devoid of life — 
crushed and mute — under a superincumbent burden 
of to us inconceivable thickness and weight. Grad- 
ually, after a lapse of years concerning which we can 
form not even an estimate, — it is here all matter 
of guess-work, — climatic changes again came about, 
and the ice sheet began to melt away. At the time of 
its greatest development, its frontier had been some 
forty miles east of Nantucket and south of Cape 
Cod, — approximately, perhaps, — for certainty and 
exactness of measurement are, in this matter, as yet 
remote, — some lao to 150 miles from Lincoln; — 
and, as the grinding and excavating barrier, fold on 
fold and bit by bit, receded, the continent beneath it 
emerged, assuming as it did so a different contour and 
novel shapes. 

This may have been ten thousand years ago, more 
or less, — probably less rather than more, possibly 
six thousand only. And yet, in comparison with 
even six thousand years, how small a poor century 
and a half of municipal life appears, — the narrow 
fringe on an ample garment ! When, however, this 

23 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

region, in process of time to be known as Lincoln 
by the descendants of a race not yet emerged from 
barbarism, again saw the sunlight, — like Hamlet's 
father, revisited the glimpses of the moon, — when 
this slowly came about, the crust of the solid earth 
had been depressed some forty feet, — whether by 
the sheer weight imposed upon it, or by the cosmic 
conditions which led to the cyclic change ; the water- 
sheds were not as they had been, and the streams 
found new channels and outlets. Meanwhile the 
interior had become the seaboard ; and the old sea- 
board marked the edge of what are known as deep- 
sea soundings. In the further interior the whole 
aspect of the continent had undergone change, the 
former surface had been ground down or scraped 
away, the hills had been denuded, the valleys filled 
up. Everything movable in the region thereafter to 
be known as Lincoln had been displaced. When not 
gouged away, the soil had been bodily lifted up and 
carried over into what are now Norfolk and Plymouth 
counties, and there deposited ; or, perhaps, borne 
still further on and, literally, cast into the sea. Thus, 
when Lincoln — the township we know — emerged 
from under the liquescent mass, it appeared not only 
in a new form, but with a soil in large degree alien, 
— a detritus from northern Massachusetts, and the 
mountains of New Hampshire. As the ice dissolved, 
moreover, fierce sub-glacial streams flowed to and 
fro, or made lakes against the barrier, seeking, 
through a strangely changed watershed, the easiest 
outlets. These streams also brought down with them 

24 



The William Hartwell House 

Residence of Mr. John Dee 

(p. 216) 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

vast deposits of soil, — gravel, clay and sand, — 
spreading them over the denuded country or the 
face of yet unmelted ice, thus long held congealed. 
On an immensely large scale of space and time, it 
was the process we now see in little each recurring 
spring. The fields and roadsides are then boggy 
with water, brooklets in miniature run everywhere, 
the uplands are in movement towards the valleys, 
and every hollow in the fields becomes for a time a 
shallow lake. In certain spots, — recesses in the soil, 
— bodies of ice accumulate, and, becoming covered 
with soil, are shielded from atmospheric influence. 
Presently, the ice formation melts until finally a 
cavity is left, at the bottom of which lie the matters 
which had held the ice congealed. On a gigantic 
scale, multiplied in every case by many thousand- 
fold, this familiar process then went on. 

Take an instance fresh in memory. The winter 
just ended was with us one of well-nigh unprece- 
dented severity. They say we had a snowfall of some 
seventy inches ; while, on more than thirty days, the 
mercury registered from thirty to sixty degrees of 
frost. The ice formation and snow deposit, when the 
season passed its climax, may have averaged two 
feet. They certainly did not average more. During 
that glacial period, as the result of which the Lincoln 
region assumed its present contour, the ice formation 
was, instead of two feet thick, perhaps five thousand ; 
and, after lasting not three months but for centuries, 
it at length broke up through a period and from 
cosmic causes which the scientist has as yet failed to 

25 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

specify or explain. One thing only may safely be 
assumed. Every natural process we last month 
watched in little then proceeded on a scale at least 
two thousand times as large. Our gurgling roadside 
gutter stream was a rushing sub-glacial torrent ; the 
cavities left by the ice bodies which lingered last be- 
came the beds of lakes ; the soil and gravel and sand 
we saw washed down and left in the lowlands became 
those ridges of gravel and hard-pan, those deposits 
of light, sandy soil, those upland bogs and marshes, 
cold and treeless, with which Lincoln to-day abounds. 
Starting at this very hill on which Lincoln village 
stands, going out through yonder door and walk- 
ing down by Sandy Pond, the geologist will to-day 
point out the line of gravel deposit left by the gla- 
cier where its ice-concealed streams tore down to the 
Sudbury, which then found and formed the channel 
wherein now it flows. First, there is Sandy Pond, a 
mere hollow among the hills, partly rimmed by gla- 
cial rubbish ; then there are the Concord woods, all 
ridged with glacial kames and knolls, between and 
among which lie yet other ponds; next, sixty feet 
below Sandy Pond, though not a mile away, is Wal- 
den, a deep ice-block cavity, among the gravels ; 
finally, a succession of ridges, swamps, bogs, swales 
and hollows, — still freshly bearing the imprints of 
the glacier, — until we emerge on Fairhaven-bay, 
the shallow and confined residuum of what was once 
a lake of depth and compass. As the crow flies, 
Fairhaven-bay is but a short two hundred yards 
from Walden, and, measured centre to centre, two 

26 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

miles from Sandy Pond ; but, under the mysterious 
workings of glacial force, there is a drop of sixty 
feet between Sandy Pond and Walden, and of an 
hundred between it and the Sudbury. And all the 
intermediate space is so fresh from the formative 
power, so clearly marked by it, that though we fail 
in our daily walks to note it, a thousand years are 
there but as yesterday and as a watch in the night.' 

So it was and is ; and, because of it, the Lincoln 
of to-day is a Massachusetts hill region. In Mr. 
Wheeler's forceful, if homely, words, " not a tubful 
of water" flows into the town, — every drop that 
filters through its soil or falls from the clouds upon 
it always has sought, and now seeks, an outlet from 
it. Hence its history. Originally, the backwoods, 
the outlying districts, " the Farms," as such dis- 
tricts were then called, of several adjacent towns, out 
of them it was carved and made up. Concord and 
Lexington and Weston each contributed, even though 
grudgingly, a share. In fact, the tradition is that by 
those dwelling in the mother communities Lincoln 
was long known not by that name, but was somewhat 
derisively designated " Niptown," being made up, it 
was alleged, of remnants bitten off, as it were, from 
each. 

But of the three territorial entities thus despoiled, 
one alone, Concord, can in the Massachusetts no- 
menclature be classed as a mother town. Settled, 
because of its well-watered site and broad bottom 
lands, in 1635, Concord was in the same year incor- 

1 See Appendix A, pp. 1 13-126. 
27 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

porated, thirteenth in seniority among Massachu- 
setts towns. Cambridge and Watertown bordered it 
on the east ; to the west was the unpeopled wilder- 
ness. What afterwards became Lexington was then 
known as Cambridge Farms, — the outlying back 
region of what a year later (1636) became the col- 
lege town. But almost sixty years were to pass be- 
fore an independent existence, as Lexington, was to 
be given that remote region, first (1691) as a pre- 
cinct, then (17 13) as a municipality. Watertown was 
in every sense of the term a Massachusetts mother 
town. Not until 17 13 was Weston cut off from it. 
Thus, after 17 13, Concord, Lexington and Weston 
— one mother and two daughter towns — adjoined 
each other, and where they met was the hill portion 
of each ; — an outlying, then inaccessible and, conse- 
quently, undesirable region, somewhat elevated, not 
well drained, heavily wooded and with an inferior 
soil, — where not cold and boggy, light and friable. 
In a word, it was a glacial detritus, and not an allu- 
vial deposit. So, naturally enough, Lincoln, the hill 
tract of the three towns, was peopled last, nor thickly 
peopled at that. But at length the fulness of time 
came to it also. 

It is one of the commonplaces of our Massa- 
chusetts history that those who first established 
themselves here as families, — fathers, mothers and 
children, — and not as mere adventurers, came to 
Plymouth in 1620, or to Salem in 1628, or to 
Boston in 1630, to found a "plantation religious," 
• — church and town were one in the beginning, and 

28 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

thenceforth advanced hand in hand. The church 
represented and comprised not only the rehgious 
aspirations and spiritual existence, but the social life 
also ; the town, the material, the educational and 
political. The meeting-house, as its name implied, 
was common ground ; for in those days all was 
sanctified in a way, and nothing was peculiarly sanc- 
tified. So, theology and religion permeating life, 
church and town met under one roof-tree. There 
was no consecrated church edifice, and no distinctive 
town-hall, — only the Meeting-house. Naturally, as 
the inhabitants occupying the back lands, — the 
Farms, — the common hill country of Concord and 
Lexington and Weston, — increased in number, they 
became more and more conscious of their isolation. 
It must have been great, — as we without much 
exaggeration would consider it, unbearable. So far 
as I have been able to discover, for there are no 
maps of that period, and the records are very scanty, 
after the incorporation of Weston (17 13) and before 
that of Lincoln (1754) there were but two East and 
West roads running through all this region, with one 
North and South road. In the case of Concord, the 
earliest way opened, seems to have been from Water- 
town, through what is now Lexington, by the old 
Virginia road, so called, through Lincoln's northern 
limits, to the junction of the Sudbury and Assabet 
rivers, beyond.' Speaking generally, in those times 

I See Albert E. Wood's paper "The Plantation of Muskete- 
quid " (p. 20), in the publications of the Concord Antiquarian So- 
ciety. 

29 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

the bridle path followed the Indian trail ; the farm- 
way the bridle path ; the road, then, was developed 
out of what had been the farm-way ; and, in due 
time, the thoroughfare, or highway, followed. The 
railroad, when at last it came, was, as a general thing, 
apt to keep close to the original trail. 

From Boston the settlement of Massachusetts ra- 
diated ; and, in that settlement, Boston continued to 
be the centre of gravitation. But, at the time of the 
incorporation of Lincoln, and for two and forty years 
after that event, Boston was, and remained, strictly 
a peninsula. We to-day, as our fathers before us, are 
so accustomed to reach the city's centre by a direct 
route, road or rail, through Arlington, or Waltham, 
and Cambridge, that it is not easy to realize that this 
has not always been the line of intercourse, — that 
it is, in fact, a modern invention. Such, however, is 
the case ; nor is it possible to get a clear idea of the 
origin and development of Lincoln's system of roads 
without first ridding the mind of that to which it is 
accustomed as part of its daily life. Lincoln's roads 
originated, and were developed, with an eye to Bos- 
ton : but, until 1786, the only unbroken thorough- 
fare into Boston was through Roxbury, over the 
Neck, as it was called. The single other regular 
means of communication was the Charlestown ferry, 
provided in 1631 ; and, later, become a link in the 
great Coast-road of 1639, from Salem to Plymouth. 
Thus for one whole century and two thirds of an- 
other, following the settlement of Massachusetts, — 
three fifths of the whole time since elapsed, — every 

30 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

vehicle that went out of Boston, or into Boston, ex- 
cept over the ice in winter, passed through Roxbury 
and along what is now Washington Street. Foot- 
passengers, and, at a later day, those on horseback 
probably, were ferried over from Charlestown ; but 
everything on wheels or runners, even from the 
Essex towns, found its roundabout way Boston-ward 
over the Neck. Until 1783, people passing between 
Boston and Cambridge even, unless they sailed or 
rowed over, went through Brookline. Thus Judge 
Sewell records how, on July 4, 171 1, he "went to 
the Commencement by water in a sloop ; " though, 
in 1720, he drove out through Roxbury, but had a 
pleasant passage home by water, and " landed at the 
bottom of the Common." When, fifty-five years 
later, the British troops marched through Lincoln to 
Concord, they were carried over from Boston by 
boats to what is now East Cambridge, and, on their 
return, they made their way to Charlestown. I have 
referred to Judge Sewell, and his Commencements 
at Cambridge. The Judge was a good deal of a trav- 
eller about Massachusetts, but he records one visit 
only to Concord. That was on Wednesday, May 14, 
171 2 ; and he went as a delegate from the church of 
Boston to the ordination of the Rev. John Whiting. 
He made the journey in a hired calash ; and, start- 
ing from his house in Boston at five o'clock in the 
morning, he got to Concord at ten. Coming back, 
he left Concord at half after three, and " Return'd 
into my own House a very little before Nine. Laus 
Deo." 

31 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Boston being thus the great objective, it naturally 
followed that, as new roads or ways were opened in 
Lincoln, they almost uniformly tended towards either 
Charlestown or Roxbury, on the way to Boston, and 
not at all to Cambridge. The earliest map we have 
upon which the roads of the period anterior to 1800 
are indicated, is an English military map of 1775. 
The original and subsequent lines of communication 
can thereon be traced. The north road in Lincoln 
then went by way of Prospect Hill to Charlestown ; 
the south road ran through Weston to Watertown ; 
there crossing the Charles, it passed through Brook- 
line to Roxbury. A more direct road through Cam- 
bridge, and over Cambridgeport bridge, was opened 
in 1793; while what was at the time referred to as 
that "gigantic undertaking the Mill Dam," the ex- 
tension of Beacon Street to Brookline, was not com- 
pleted until 1820. So far as Lincoln was concerned, 
the Mill Dam, following West Boston bridge, at last 
did away with Charlestown and Roxbury as thorough- 
fares to Boston.' 

In this comparatively remote region, lying between 
the two natural routes to Boston, — elevated, tree- 
grown and secluded, — a sparse population dwelt, 
and, somehow, extracted from a niggard soil the 
wherewithal on which to live. Needless to say there 
were in those days no stage-coaches ; no daily news- 
papers ; no post-offices or mails ; no places where 
men congregated; for Lincoln, — I am speaking of 
the period before 1750, — there was not even a corner 

' See Appendix B, pp. 127-132. 
32 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

grocery or a cross-road variety store. It was a work- 
a-day life in the woods all the year round for those 
whose lot was there cast, — with Boston, their near- 
est market-town, some twenty miles away. How 
they continued to exist, much more accumulate sub- 
stance, I have found it difficult to make out. Wood 
they had for fuel ; corn they grew, and from it made 
meal ; the pork and beef barrels were in the store- 
house; their cloth was home-spun ; of groceries and 
West India goods they used but little, our necessi- 
ties being luxuries with them ; and, for household 
utensils, they depended on the passing peddler, or 
the occasional journey by cart or sleigh to Boston. 
In case of illness there was no near-by physician ; 
for childbirth no nurse ; the simplest drugs and 
medicines were hardly procurable. There were few 
books, and absolutely no libraries ; no printing-press, 
much less a news stand. A surveyor by calling, who 
in 1 82 1 published what he designated a topographi- 
cal sketch of the country immediately about Boston, 
has left this description of Lincoln ; and, be it re- 
membered, it was written in the stage-coach period, 
nearly seventy years after the incorporation of the 
town, and when many additional public ways and 
turnpikes had been laid out: "The old road [Tra- 
pelo] leading to the town of Lincoln, for the last six 
miles, is crooked, narrow, and hilly, little travelled on 
and much neglected. The roads within the limits of 
the town are generally uneven and in bad repair. The 
soil is coarse and rocky, a great portion whereof is 
covered with wood, and not more than one third of the 

33 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

town under culture." ' Certainly not an alluring 
description ; yet at the time when it was written two 
generations of inhabitants had already passed away 
since the incorporation of Lincoln, and the War of 
Independence was as remote from the people then 
alive as the War of Secession is from us. 

The situation I have sought thus rapidly to picture 
had existed from the beginning. Custom made it 
endurable ; but, as population increased, people be- 
came restive. A craving was felt. A full century 
before the incorporation of Lincoln was discussed, the 
Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay had 
proclaimed it as their first "duty to provide that 
all places and people, within their gates, should be 
supplied with an able and faithful minister of God's 
holy word; " and now, in August, 1744, divers of 
those residing in this, the easterly part of Concord, 
the northerly part of Weston and the westerly part 
of Lexington, represented to that same Great and 
General Court that they labored "under great diffi- 
culties and inconveniences by reason of their distance 
from their respective places of public worship in said 
towns, their families being many of them numerous, 
in the winter season more especially ; " and, accord- 
ingly, they petitioned to be set oif as a separate pre- 
cinct, to the end that " the public worship of God 
might, by them, be more comfortably, constantly and 
universally attended upon." The prayer was certainly 
reasonable ; for, as the signers of it went on to assert, 
many of them lived " four, and some five miles dis- 

' J. G. Hales, Sur'vey of Boston and Vicinity (1821), p. 68. 

34 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

tant from " their places of public worship ; whereas, 
if the petition was granted, there would be " but few 
inhabitants two miles and a quarter from the center" 
of the proposed precinct. 

Circumstanced as we to-day are, we do not even 
remotely" realize what all this meant ; but, to those 
instructed, the words used are in their simplicity 
redundant of pathos. They reveal a community cut 
off from everything which to us makes life worth 
living. Essentially a simple, a moral and a religious 
race, the seclusion in which they perforce passed 
their lives bordered close on that solitude which 
leads to mental atrophy. They had, of course, their 
pleasures and pastimes, such as they were ; for it 
was neither a gloomy nor a joyless race. There were 
the house-raisings, the pig-stickings and the corn- 
huskings ; Thanksgiving came, as well as Fast-day : 
but, like his English forbears, the New Englander 
took his pleasure rather sadly. Into it also he car- 
ried an abiding sense of the obligations under which 
he drew breath, and the hereafter which awaited him. 
Thus the church to which he belonged, and the Sab- 
bath concourse at the meeting-house were about all 
either social or aesthetic that existence had to offer. 
According to our ideas, it was not much ; but, to 
them, it was everything. 

Thus it was with Lincoln, as it was with all the 
little New England civic communities, — the history 
of the church is the early history of the town. Not 
only were the two blended, but the former absorbed 
the latter. On the earliest plan of the township 

35 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

which has come down to us, that made by Samuel 
Hoar just forty years after its incorporation, the 
" meeting-house " is the one building designated ; 
and when Hales, twenty-five years later made his 
surveys, he described the " principal settlements " 
as grouped around the meeting-house. Naturally 
enough, therefore, the church being its all, the first 
acts of the " distinct and separate Precinct," eight 
years before the town came into being, related to 
the meeting-house, and the securing the services of 
" some meet person " therein " publicly to preach 
the word of God." 

Of that earliest meeting-house, referred to in 
April, 1747, as "already built," no description has 
come down to us. It seems to have stood, and 
served its purpose, for over a century, indeed until 
1857, or easily within the memory of those now liv- 
ing ; but no sketch or picture of it taken on the spot 
and at the time is extant. In its latest form also it 
differed in all essential respects from the more prim- 
itive building of 1747, which appears to have been 
a sufficiently large, but somewhat barn-like structure, 
foursquare, two stories in height, and surmounted 
by a sloping ridge-pole roof. In the very early days, 
in fact immediately after the incorporation of 1754, 
provision was made for a belfry, and, subsequently, 
for a steeple ; and for entrances and porches at the 
front, and on the two sides. The names, twenty- 
two in number, of those who contributed, whether 
in money, material or labor, to the construction of 
the primitive building, have come down to us, — a 

36 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

species of original town roster. Headed by Benjamin 
Brown, in it is found the familiar Lincoln nomen- 
clature from the first page of its records to that just 
written, — Munroe, Pierce, Brooks, Wheeler and 
Brown; though Farrar, Hartwell, Baker and Smith 
do not there appear. Curiously enough, and indica- 
tive of the prudential spirit of the period, in the con- 
veyance to the precinct of the edifice, together with 
the land on which it stood, the " glass in said House " 
was specifically and carefully excepted. The win- 
dows and sashes apparently did not go with the site 
and structure ; and the precinct forthwith voted to 
assess itself in the sum of ^250, "in bills of credit 
of the new tenor," to defray the necessary charges 
in further finishing " the edifice." Eleven months 
later, the meeting-house meanwhile having appar- 
ently been improved and completed, Mr. William 
Lawrence was chosen as " gospel minister," receiving 
twenty-two out of twenty-nine votes. His settle- 
ment was characteristic of the period. He was to 
have outright J^Soo, " old tenor," to garnish his 
establishment, and afterwards an annual salary of 
;^400 " according to old tenor bills." But those were 
the dreary days of provincial paper money. The 
currency was in process of readjustment on a hard- 
money basis, and the bills in use circulated at a rate 
of about eleven paper to one silver. A livelihood 
of ^{^400 " according to old tenor bills " represented, 
therefore, a somewhat precarious and uncertain sup- 
port; and Mr. Lawrence not unnaturally stipu- 
lated that his salary should be regulated by the 

37 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

prices " of some of the necessaries of life." The ar- 
ticles then enumerated tell us clearly what the eigh- 
teenth century population of the town produced, and 
upon what those composing it lived : — Indian corn 
was the staple, rated at fifteen shillings, old tenor, per 
bushel ; rye, one pound, old tenor, per bushel ; pork, 
one shilling and eight pence per pound ; beef, one 
shilling per pound. The minister was also to have 
delivered to him " at his house, thirty cords of wood, 
annually, for his fire." What do these figures mean, 

— X8oo, and jC400 " according to old tenor bills ; " 
Indian corn at fifteen shillings per bushel ; rye at 
one pound per bushel, — wood thirty cords ? 

This is history ! Those figures carry us back di- 
rectly into the homes of a people. With them under 
our eyes, we can sit down beneath the roof-trees ; we 
stand at the hearthstones. Interpreting those first pre- 
cinct votes in the language, and measuring them by the 
standards of our time, — for they are expressed in a 
familiar tongue but in forgotten terms, — doing this, 
we get down to the daily lives of our colonial period, 

— a period which in Lincoln lasted as long as its first 
meeting-house stood. But of this, more presently. 

First, however, to return for a moment to Lincoln 
town, successor to Concord second precinct. We ob- 
serve its birth on the twenty-third day of April, and 
refer to the opening lines of the first page of the ear- 
liest volume of our records as authority for so doing. 
On the other hand, the act of incorporation passed 
both legislative bodies April 19. This fact, only 
recently come to light, has led to further research 

38 



The Samuel Hartwell House 

Residence of Messrs. Edward and Francis McHugh 

(p. 216) 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

among the archives of the Commonwealth, as a re- 
sult whereof it appears that Lincoln was very directly 
connected with a not uninteresting incident in Massa- 
chusetts provincial history in a way which has here- 
tofore escaped the notice of its historians. Space and 
time do not admit of full treatment here. Suffice 
it to say that between 1740 and 1760 the incor- 
poration of towns, carrying with it the right of re- 
presentation, was, for reasons of state, discouraged. 
During that period only four new towns were or- 
ganized ; in all other cases, some twenty-two in 
number, districts were created with all the powers 
and rights of towns, save name and representation. 
But the 1754 session of the General Court was in 
this respect exceptional, inasmuch as three new towns 
were then incorporated. Of the three Lincoln was 
one, Greenwich and Petersham being the other two. 
Governor Shirley had himself inaugurated what may 
be called the district policy ; and, at his instance, in- 
structions covering the case had in 1743 been sent 
out by the Lords of Trade. Subsequently, while 
Governor Shirley himself was in England, the mat- 
ter was wrangled over between the Legislature and 
Lieutenant-Governor Phipps, who, in the absence 
of the governor, represented the Crown. Chambers 
Russell then took a hand in the matter. An ener- 
getic man, he had for some time been involved in a 
controversy with the people of Concord. He wanted 
a public way laid out through his estate; the present 
road from Concord to Weston, by Walden Pond. 
Concord opposed the laying out " tooth and nail." 

39 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

So he threw his influence in with the inhabitants of 
the remoter parts of the three adjoining towns, seek- 
ing incorporation. The Russells were a power in the 
Province. Chambers's father, Daniel Russell, was 
of the Council ; his brother, James, was a member of 
the House of Representatives ; he himself was a 
justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, as the 
highest legal tribunal of the Province was then de- 
nominated. In August, 1753, Governor Shirley had 
returned to Massachusetts after an absence of three 
years ; and, meeting the General Court in December, 
was not successful in his dealings with it. Hutch- 
inson says in his history that when he asked some 
allowance to be made him for the time he was away, 
the legislative body returned " an angry message, 
and not only refused to enlarge the grant, but gave 
this reason for it, that if his services and their pay- 
ment since his appointment to the government could 
be fully stated, the balance would be in their favor." 
Having measures of his own — a fort on the Ken- 
nebec, and instructed delegates to the Albany Con- 
vention then about to be held — much at heart, his 
excellency was in no position to oppose the wishes 
of the Assembly on matters of lesser consequence. 
The Great and General Court met on March 28, 
1754, and the petition of Chambers Russell and 
others for the incorporation of Lincoln was that day 
presented. Somewhat in disregard of rule and pre- 
cedent, the measure was immediately pushed through 
all the legislative stages ; and, the opposition of the 
three towns curtailed of territory to the contrary not- 

40 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

withstanding, the act, in face of sundry adverse peti- 
tions, passed both houses within three weeks of its 
presentation. This was on April 19. It then went 
to the governor. His instructions adverse to it were 
explicit ; he himself had inspired them. There was, 
however, no help ; so he chose the lesser of two 
evils. He seems to have held the measure some 
days under advisement; but apparently signed it on 
the 23d, and it then became a law. The original 
parchment has disappeared. It cannot be found on 
the files of the office of the secretary of the Com- 
monwealth ; but the first town-clerk of Lincoln, in 
opening his book of records, spread on it the certi- 
fied copy of the act sent him by the deputy secretary, 
the act, as thus copied, bearing date " April the 23d, 
Anno Dom. 1754." No time was lost in organiza- 
tion. James Minot, of Concord, was a member of the 
Council. The legislative session closed on the 23d, 
and Mr. Minot seems to have carried the act home 
with him, the ink of the governor's signature hardly 
dry upon it. The next day he issued his precept for 
a town-meeting. Two days later it was held ; and 
the town organization of Lincoln thus dates from the 
26th day of April, 1754. 

On the 26th of May, 1746, one month only lack- 
ing of eight full years before, the first meeting of 
Concord's second precinct had been held at the house 
of Edward Flint. The evolution was now complete ; 
the precinct had become a town : and, as was proper 
and in accordance with the custom of that time, the 
first town-meeting was held in the meeting-house. 

41 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Judging by patronymics, the officers then selected 
might have been selected yesterday, — Ephraim 
Flint, Ephraim Hartwell, Samuel Farrar, John Hoar, 
John Garfield, Joshua Brooks, Benjamin Monroe, 
John Adams, Josiah Parks, Edmund Wheeler, John 
Billings. From that day to this, the continuity has 
been unbroken. 

I have just said that, in the case of Lincoln, the 
history of the church is the early history of the town, 
— the former absorbed the latter. The story of the 
Lincoln church has been told, and well and suffi- 
ciently told. It has been told also in a scholarly way 
by men in every essential respect far better qualified 
for the task than am I. I do not propose to repeat 
what Mr. Richardson and Mr. Bradley and Mr. 
Porter have so recently set forth, and so graphically 
narrated. They have exhausted that field. I do, 
however, propose to picture, in so far as I can, the 
earlier life of the town as seen through its connection 
with the church ; for, only in that way, can it be re- 
produced and made visible. I begin, therefore, with 
the precinct's earlier ministerial settlements. 

William Lawrence, the first minister of the Lin- 
coln church, belonged to the widely-known family 
whose name is as deeply stamped on the map of 
Kansas as on that of Massachusetts. Born at Groton, 
in 1723, he was graduated at Harvard in the class of 
1743. On the 7th of December, 1748, he was or- 
dained as the first settled minister of Lincoln and, a 
little more than a year later, on the 7th of February, 
1750, he was, in his own quaint language, " married 

42 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

To a young Lady whose Name was Love Addams, 
Daughter of John & Love Addams." ' 

Mr. Lawrence ministered here hard upon a third 
of a century, or more than five years over the church 
of the second Concord precinct, and, for the twenty- 
six years following those five, over this Lincoln con- 
gregation. He died in the odor of sanctity, and, it 
is said, of loyalty, in the midst of our revolutionary 
troubles, on the nth of April, 1780. He left his 
widow. Love, with nine children, three sons and six 
daughters, the youngest of eight years. Mrs. Love 
Lawrence lived to an extreme age, and far into 
the following century, dying, January 3, 1820, here 
on Lincoln hill, to which she had come as a bride 
nearly seventy years before. In the early days of 
the town, Chambers Russell, we are told, was " the 
most distinguished resident of Lincoln," as unques- 
tionably he was the most well-to-do ; for no one 
was wealthy in our sense of the term. His mansion 
still stands just south of the railroad, and in the 
fields about it are noble pasture oaks which even 
in his day must have been large.^ Next to Cham- 
bers Russell in consideration unquestionably came 
the minister, he also a Harvard graduate, reported 
to be " a good thinker, a vigorous writer, and an 
instructive preacher." He was certainly an industri- 
ous writer, for it is recorded of him that he wrote 
on an average seventy sermons a year, and that he 
derived from the Gospel of St. Matthew texts for 

' See Appendix C, pp. 132-135. 
* See Appendix D, pp. 135-146. 

43 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

no less than 21 a discourses, while the Gospels of 
Luke and John, and the First Epistle of Peter sup- 
plied him with 295 more. There is in this statement 
something pathetic and depressing ; for it suggests 
an industry conscientious and sustained, and yet so 
exceedingly profitless. Here was a man, educated, 
and, presumably, refined in his way, — a student and 
a thinker, — but remote from the world and bu- 
ried in colonial seclusion, cut off from any contact 
with living thought or access to current literature, 
spider-like, perpetually evolving sermons, not from 
stones but from his inner consciousness. Seventy 
sermons a year produced under such conditions ! In 
the thought there is something distinctly appalling. 
Almost had it been better to have ground in Gaza's 
prison-house ! — but, as the Sabbath discourses were 
all they had, supplying the needs filled for us by 
theatres, lectures, concerts, newspapers and books, 
eighteenth century parishioners were, doubtless, 
exacting. So the unfortunate minister drudged along, 
eking out weekly his sermon and a half, till at 
last the end came. To the investigator of later 
times, however, living in a wholly different stage of 
development, there is also something exasperating, 
not to say irritating, in such fecundity of the com- 
monplace. Why could it not have occurred to Mr. 
Lawrence to find tongues in trees, and books in the 
running brooks, so telling us something of Lincoln ? 
I have not examined these discourses myself; life 
— at least my life — is not long enough to delve in 
eighteenth century pulpit utterances : but one who 

44 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

did dip to a moderate extent into the Lawrence man- 
uscripts assures us that, though expressed in a some- 
what conventional style, — how, under the circum- 
stances of composition, could it have been otherwise ? 
— they show " a careful exegesis, a calm, logical 
method," and " an earnest purpose ; " but, and here 
comes in the irritating proviso, in them is found " no 
allusion to passing events." They are Dead Sea ap- 
ples, — "all ashes to the taste." A single occasional 
discourse, descriptive to us of the preacher's sur- 
roundings, his interests, his people and their pur- 
suits, would in value have far outweighed to us 
whole barrels of abstract discourses, though in them 
" the Beatitudes receive far more specific attention 
than the Decalogue." 

Let us now turn to the minister's home. Gold- 
smith, in his " Deserted Village," tells us of the 
Auburn curate : — 

•' A man he was to all the country dear 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 

Measured in " hard money," or, as we phrase it, 
in specie, the settlement and annual stipend of the 
Rev. William Lawrence does not seem to have risen 
to even this modest competence. Those were days 
of a depreciated paper currency, — bills of the 
" old tenor," bills of the " new tenor," were out- 
standing, with, at the close, continental money. 
Some ten years after the settlement of Mr. Law- 
rence, the Massachusetts monetary system was 
reformed, and put on a stable basis, through the 

45 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

financial skill and strong business sense of the 
much, and unjustly, maligned Governor Thomas 
Hutchinson; and the bills of the "old tenor" were 
then called in, and redeemed, at about fourteen per 
cent, of their nominal value, — or, more exactly, at 
7.5 to I. The j^Soo voted Mr. Lawrence at his 
settlement in 1747 represented, therefore, approxi- 
mately j[ii^ in silver at $3-33 a pound, or an 
aggregate sum in our money of $36^; while the 
annual stipend of ^400 was reduced to about j£^Sy 
Massachusetts, or, approximately, I185 a year. If 
these figures represent the real state of Mr. Law- 
rence's financial resources, they are certainly sugges- 
tive. Computed in staples, — the market quotations 
of corn and rye, beef and pork furnishing the stand- 
ards of value, — what, compared with the present, 
was the relative purchasing power of this annual 
stipend of $185 "hard money"? Indian corn, for 
instance, seems to have been valued at about 30 
cents a bushel, and rye at 45 cents ; while pork was 
rated at about four cents a pound, and beef at three 
cents. As corn is now quoted at an average price 
of about 42 cents a bushel, and rye at ^3 cents, 
while pork is 12 cents per pound, and beef 10 
cents, the purchasing power of money, measured in 
food staples, compared with its present purchasing 
power, would seem to have been from half as much 
again to four and even five times as much.' 

^ When, after the death of Mr. Lawrence, the Rev. Charles Stearns 
was, in 1781, Invited to succeed him, the salary offered was ^80, 
Massachusetts, a year, in "hard money," or $266, and this was, pre- 

46 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

Clearly, then, the Rev. William Lawrence must 
have been what is now known as a forehanded man; 
though his helpmate, or, as he termed her, his " yoke- 
fellow," may well have been a large factor in his pru- 
dential affairs. Indeed, she is portrayed to us as not 
only of " stately mien and benign countenance," but 
also "a wife of uncommon wisdom and prudence." 
The worldly outcome of the pair was certainly sug- 
gestive.' Something, it is true, came to Mr. Law- 

sumably, an increase on the salary previously paid to Mr. Lawrence. 
The custom of paying the minister his salary on a standard of staple 
prices continued until the close of the eighteenth century. Thus the 
report of a committee appointed in 1797 to reach an understanding 
with Mr. Stearns contains the following: — 

<'That from and after the 7 th day of November inst: during the 
time that he [Mr. Stearns] shall remain our Gospel Minister, his An- 
nual Salary continue to be Eighty pounds, at all times when the Current 
price of Indian Com is at three shillings per Bushell, Rye at four shil- 
lings and Beef at twenty Shillings per hundred, and Pork at thirty- three 
Shillings and four pence per hundred w't, all of Right good Quality — 
that the sum or amoxmt of said Salary shall be increased or diminished 
as the Current price of those Articles shall rise or fall, from time to 
time, one fourth part of the Salary to be computed on each of those 
Articles. And that the Selectmen of the Town shall make the said 
Computation, with the said Charles Steams, in the beginning of No- 
vember annually. This being the contract of the Specie part of his the 
said Charles Steams' Salary, the Allowance of Wood [15 cords] re- 
maining as heretofore allowed by the Town — And that the payment 
of the said Salary to the said Charles Steams be made semi-annually by 
the Treasurer." (Town Records, November 6, 1797.) Measured 
by purchasing power, the value of the money unit was then four to five 
times what it now is; measured by cost of living, a salary of $233 may 
have been, approximately, the equivalent of a salary of $1200 a year 
now; but life was much simpler generally. 

' The thrift and business instinct of the Rev. Mr. Lawrence and his 
spouse seem to have excited notice during his life ; for, in his anniver- 

47 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

rence in the way of inheritance; but it was not much, 
and consisted chiefly of farming land in Groton. Yet, 
" passing rich " on that salary of ^60, Massachusetts, 
a year, he and his spouse Love lived, and obviously 
prospered ; for they brought up, educated and mar- 
ried a family of nine children, six of whom were 
daughters. And when, a minister of one church for 
over thirty years, William Lawrence wrote himself 
to a death-bed, he breathed his last in his house 
here on Lincoln hill, the possessor of what is de- 
scribed as " a good farm of thirty-nine acres con- 
nected with the homestead, extending down to 
[Sandy] pond, besides eighteen acres known then as 
the * Oliver land' — since called the Lawrence pas- 
ture — seven acres of * mead land,' and some ten 
acres of * flint land.' Considerable property was also 
left in Groton and Townsend." The dwelling-house 
is thus described : "It was a low-studded two-story 
building ... a modest abode, with whitewashed 
walls and sanded floors and plain furniture. There 
was but one carpet in the house, and that was In 
the 'west chamber,'" the chamber looking towards 



sary discourse (p. 22) Mr. Bradley, the successor of Mr. Lawrence in 
the sixth remove, reports a legend to the following effect : " Toward 
the end of his ministry one of [Mr. Lawrence's] flock, remarking upon 
his evident prosperity, asked him in a jesting way how it was that he 
got on so well. To which Mr. Lawrence replied, * By minding my 
own business, and letting yours alone.' " The incident is apocryphal ; 
but it is given as illustrating Mr. Lawrence's "sense of humor." It 
may, however, perhaps be questioned whether the "member of his 
flock," to whom the reply was addressed, saw at once the humorous 
aspect of the retort. 

48 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

Concord. " The parlor contained a mahogany table, 
a walnut desk, a little round tea-table, six leathern- 
seated chairs, a few books of divinity, and the family 
Bible. . . . The ' common room ' had an eight-day 
clock, a looking-glass, and a light-stand. . . . The 
kitchen had the usual capacious fireplace, with its 
blazing light reflected from double rows of shining 
pewter." From the parlor we pass into the minis- 
ter's study, — the work room in which the busy 
pen wrote out those seventy sermons in the average 
year. In it were some two hundred volumes, largely 
quartos and folios, — sermons, theology and commen- 
taries ; those forgotten gravestones of a buried past 
of which Hallam, the English historian, wrote — 
" They belong no more to man, but to the worm, 
the moth, and the spider. Their dark and ribbed 
backs, their yellow leaves, their thousand folio pages, 
do not more repel us than the unprofitableness of 
their substance." Of general literature there was lit- 
tle. Poetry was represented by the wholly forgotten 
Blackmore, and the lighter prose by eight volumes 
of the "Spectator." Of history there was little, — 
the recently published " Massachusetts" of Thomas 
Hutchinson, and the ubiquitous Rollin, that also then 
a new work. But among the first Lincoln minister's 
collections one searches in vain for the names of 
Shakespeare or Dryden or Bunyan or Pope or 
De Foe, or even for that of the Puritan laureate, 
John Milton. 

And now, having made the acquaintance of the 
minister and his wife in their dwelling, let us walk 

49 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

down the hill to the meeting-house, at the cross- 
roads. However it may have been in the beginning 
and in precinct days, one of the first acts of Lincoln 
town was to provide for the " building a steeple for 
the hanging a bell for the town's use." " The old 
Meeting-house," we are told, " was nearly square, 
and was entered by three porches, the front porch 
being on the southerly side. The [square] tower in 
which the bell was hung, and on which the spire 
stood, was at the westerly end, as the gables ran, and 
another porch at the easterly end, a part of which 
was occupied by the stocks, made of heavy oaken 
planks." ' Inside, the body of the edifice was filled 
with long benches, — the women sitting on one side, 
the men on the other. On the outside of these, and 
against the walls, were pews, built by permission 
and at the cost of the owners thereof, — Chambers 
Russell being the first privileged " to choose a place 
for his pew in the meeting-house where he pleases, and 
build it when he pleases." He selected the space 
on the right of the front entrance, nearest the door. 
From time to time permission was asked, and for- 
mally given, to construct windows at the cost and 
for the benefit of privileged pew owners, through 
which the proprietor, we are told, wearying with the 
discourse, would sometimes stand and view the outer 

' Drake, in his Old Landmarks of Boston (p. 92), says : **In front 
of the old meeting-house stood the whipping-post, and probably the 
stocks. . . . Both were used as a means of enforcing attendance, or 
punishing offences against the church, and their location at its very 
portal served, no doubt, as a gentle reminder to the congregation. ' ' 

50 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

world, his back to pulpit, sounding-board and min- 
ister. In the early days, when printed books were 
scarce, it was the custom, after the minister gave out 
the hymn, for him — or for the precentor, as he was 
designated in the Church of England hierarchy, here 
called chorister — to read the psalm line by line to 
the congregation, which then sang it. In Lincoln 
this practice was discontinued in 1789 ; but, eighteen 
years earlier, in 1771, forty-two persons "who had 
attained a good understanding in the rules of sing- 
ing " were, by vote of the town, seated together as 
a choir on the lower floor. While the experiment 
apparently gave general satisfaction, to Mr. Law- 
rence's successor. Dr. Charles Stearns, it was a source 
of special pleasure ; for, among his other endow- 
ments, that faithful divine seems to have been blessed 
with an ear, as well as a soul, for music. On this 
topic he even warmed into eloquence ; and, though 
it must be admitted extracts from sermons do not 
as a rule tend to enliven, there are passages in one 
discourse of his which throw such gleams of light on 
several points of interest that quotation at length is 
justified. The sermon in question was preached here 
in Lincoln, and on this site, upon the 19th of April, 
1792, — as near as may be a century and twelve 
years since, — at " An Exhibition of Sacred Music." 
Not a soul then living in Lincoln now survives. 
Addressing the " brethren and sisters of the choir," 
Mr. Stearns exclaimed, " With pleasure have we 
beheld your zeal, and the animated diligence of your 
teacher. We have often had our ears refreshed by 

51 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

your agreeable performances. . . . When sounds 
bold and strong have set forth the majesty, the 
power and eternity of God, when lofty notes cele- 
brated his glories * which transcend the sky,* when 
menacing tones have shown the dangers of the 
wicked * on slippery rocks ready to fall into ruin,' 
when tender and plaintive accents called our atten- 
tion to * Jesus nailed to the tree,' when voices softer 
than the gentlest breeze expressed the care of Jesus 
over his flock, * hearing their prayers, and wiping 
their tears away,' such touches, so true to nature, 
could not fail. Mute attention, expressive features, 
and melting eyes declared the sensations of the 
assembly. To you we owe the revival of sacred 
music in this place, which had well-nigh slept in 
silence. So long had our harps hung upon the 
willows, that we began to fear that they would be 
wholly useless. But the songs of Zion are revived, 
and sweeter than before." 

But in this same discourse of Mr. Stearns there 
are other passages of much significance. The worthy 
minister not only actually quotes familiar lines from 
the " Merchant of Venice," — and apparently from 
memory, as he fails to quote correctly, — but he cites 
James Thomson's now forgotten poem of "Sum- 
mer" as evidence of the high estimation in which the 
bard of Avon was then held by all Britons : — 

•* Is not wild Shakespeare thine and Nature's boast ? " 

It was Charles Lamb who in one of the " Essays of 
Elia " confessed to being wholly devoid of an ear for 

52 



The Farrar House 
(p. 216) 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

music, — to save his life, he could not have turned 
the most familiar of airs, — a not uncommon defi- 
ciency ; and now Mr. Stearns, by nature tolerant, 
threw the veil of an all-enveloping charity even over 
Charles Lamb, and those in this respect his like. 
Finally, he flashes a gleam of suggestive light upon 
the manners and bearing of some who would seem 
even at that period to have attended the sanctuary in 
a spirit the reverse of devout edification. The passage 
is as delightful as it is quaint : " From the ease with 
which minds, susceptible of the pleasures of musick, 
receive moral and religious impressions, some have 
been led to consider insensibility to musick as the 
sign of a bad heart. Shakespeare, whom the people 
of Britain almost adore, and consider as an oracle in 
the knowledge of human nature,' saith, — 

* He that hath no musick in himself. 
And is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds. 
Is fit for treasons.' ^ 

" Yet let us while we enjoy the pleasures of musick, 
be charitable to those who are deprived of them. 
Reason tells us that dullness to the charms of musick 
is no more evidence of a bad heart than to be deaf, 
blind, or dumb. In some cases it is a natural defect. 
In others, a habit of sedateness has quenched the fire 

' yide Thomson's Seasons, "Summer,'' ver. 1563. 
* The correct reading is, 

"The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not mov'd by concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." 

Merchant of Venice, Act V, Sc. I. 

53 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

of imagination. It is related of a German mathema- 
tician, that attending the King of Prussia's opera, 
where musick was in its highest perfection, he busied 
himself in measuring the height and breadth of the 
room, and in calculating the distance to which the 
human voice might be distinctly heard. Then, when 
he had done this, finding nothing else entertaining 
for him, he left the audience abruptly. Such an in- 
stance, to the lovers of the Muse, will seem almost 
miraculous. 

"Yet this person behaved himself much better 
than many others, who, not less insensible, are yet 
less innocent. They disturb the most sublime per- 
formances, in honor of Christ and of God, by mov- 
ing from place to place in the assembly, by jesting, 
laughing and tumult. If indeed it be, that such 
have no relish for sacred musick, they ought, in 
point of civility, not to disturb the holy pleasures 
of others." 

To return to the choir — the forty-two persons 
"who had attained a good understanding in the rules 
of singing ; " — these were at first assigned seats in the 
rear of the main floor, although galleries had already 
been built around three sides of the interior ; but 
not until a later day were the ceilings under the floors 
of these galleries plastered. Occupied during the 
hours of Sabbath service, mostly by boys, or by the 
town poor, and its Africans, the galleries were looked 
upon as undesirable, — to sit in them was an indica- 
tion of inferiority. So, not until after the town had 
been forty years incorporated, and the church had at 

54 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

last given a hesitating consent to the innovation of 
a bass viol to assist the singers, could the choir be 
reconciled to a place in the gallery, facing the pulpit. 
Shattuck, in his history of Concord, asserts that, in 
Lincoln, the reading of the Scriptures was first in- 
troduced as a part of the Sunday exercises by Mr. 
Lawrence, in 1763; and, in 1768, a short prayer 
before the reading. Later, and in the Stearns pas- 
torate, the services were much the same as those 
with which we are familiar — the short and long 
prayers, the singing of the psalms, and a discourse 
by the pastor, the assigned limit of which last was, 
however, not thirty minutes, as now, but a full 
hour. 

Such were the meeting-house and the services; 
the audience, — all the inhabitants of the town ! The 
Sabbath was the day of leisure, — the holiday of 

the week, though a very silent and solemn one, 

the single break in that life-long monotony. It is a 
thing of history now, remembered only by those in 
the decline of life ; the Civil War is the dividing 
Ime: but no one who passed a childhood during the 
first half of the last century can fail to recall that 
Sunday stillness, — a quiet so intense, so unbroken, 
that even animal life seemed to observe it ; so com- 
plete that it was actually audible. The bicycle, the 
carnage and the automobile have made of it a tradi- 
tion ; but it prevailed here in Lincoln for a whole 
century after incorporation, and, during that period, 
the meeting-house was for those then here dwelling 
all that the town-hall, the theatre, the lecture-room, 

55 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

the library, the Sunday paper and the periodical are 
to us of the world as it now is. Of the six hundred 
and ninety persons who composed the population 
of the town at its incorporation, probably five hun- 
dred usually gathered for worship. The old and the 
young, the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, 
the wise and the simple, the halt and the lame, the 
blind and the palsied, — all were at meeting. They 
came on foot and on horseback. There were no car- 
riages in those days ; but, summer and winter, farm 
wagons and rude country-side vehicles trooped in, 
laden with those of both sexes and all ages, the dog 
trotting demurely alongside, and, on rare occasions, 
to the huge delight of the boys in the gallery, indul- 
ging in unseemly fights, to the great disturbance of 
worshippers. To keep dogs out of the meeting-house 
during divine service was in this country, as in Eng- 
land, not infrequently made the function of a special 
officer. But, even on the Sabbath, " goin' to meetin' " 
served other ends than worship. It was the time and 
place of social gathering. The old meeting-house 
was then the centre of a lively scene, people gather- 
ing in groups around the three porches, the sheds 
on both sides of the road would be full of vehicles 
while others were hitched to neighboring posts, and 
often the flanks of the hill were dotted with wagons. 
»On rainy Sundays Dr. Stearns, they used to assev- 
erate, could be depended upon to preach his best.' 
Going to meeting, those dwelling more remotely 

' Mr. Porter's Discourse, Proceedings on the One Hundred and 
Fiftieth Anniversary, p. 76. 

56 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

shut up their houses, took with them their food, 
and made a day of it. These were those Sabbath 
"noonings" to which Mr. Bradley, in his anniver- 
sary discourse, properly and truly refers," as not the 
least important feature of the Lord's day. It was 
" the only occasion during the week when the scat- 
tered neighbors had an opportunity of exchanging " 
greetings and news ; and there is no sort of ques- 
tion that " this friendly hour had as much influence 
as any enactment of the State in securing the gen- 
eral attendance of all inhabitants at the meeting- 
house from Sunday to Sunday." In the case of 
Lincoln, moreover, it was this which decided the 
placing of the meeting-house, and, subsequently, the 
site of the village. Lincoln hill was not convenient ; 
it was not on the line of least resistance for travel ; it 
was not in the beginning accessible : but it was cen- 
tral; it was almost equidistant from the two great 
thoroughfares which crossed the precinct near its 
northern and southern limits. Even now, a century 
and a half after the town's incorporation, there is 
not a single dwelling on either the Walden road or 
the Sandy Pond road for a space of a mile and a half 
between the westernmost dwellings of Lincoln and 
the easternmost of Concord. It was then much the 
same in the direction of Weston and Lexington. 
Thus the one great wish of that community was to 
fix on some common central spot where once a week 
they could congregate. This they found on the south- 
ern slope of Lincoln hill ; and there they placed 

» Proceedings on the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anni'versary, p. 27. 

57 • 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

the meeting-house. It was in the beginning a mere 
site. There was not, so far as I have been able to 
ascertain, a single established public way affording 
access to it. It could be reached only on sufferance 
and through farm lanes, and by private ways. This, 
of course, was soon remedied, and, ultimately, the 
village grew up at the cross-roads ; but, unlike al- 
most any other Massachusetts town in that respect, 
Lincoln village has no cause whatever for its being 
except the one forgotten fact that, a hundred and 
fifty years ago, it was a central point for the Sabbath 
gathering of a scattered population, few of whom 
lived more than " two miles and a quarter " there- 
from. 

Here, then, they met in every season of the year, 
— spring and autumn, summer and winter. In the 
winter it could not have been otherwise than trying. 
The ways were bad and heavy ; the meeting-house 
unwarmed ; out-of-door movement was under em- 
bargo. Later, when air-tight stoves came into use, 
great pieces of peat were stowed away in them to 
keep a slow, safe fire in the deserted house till the 
return of the family, as the short winter day drew 
towards nightfall. How the congregation bore the 
deadly chilliness of the barn-like edifice it is not easy 
to understand. The introduction of stoves was agi- 
tated here in Lincoln during the earlier years of 
the last century, but Dr. Stearns, then pastor, set 
his face against the innovation. It might extend life 
and reduce the cases of lung fever, as pneumonia was 
called, but the fathers had not found any heating 

58 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

apparatus necessary, and the world got along very 
well then ; so he hoped no appliances for heating 
would be introduced as long as he lived.' During 
the winter, therefore, those who could not find a 
friendly shelter in the scattered dwellings about the 
hill, did not attend meeting, — they remained per- 
force at home ; but it was otherwise during half the 
year at least. Then, in spring, summer, or autumn, 
weather permitting, all the youth of Lincoln wan- 
dered in parties along the roads and through the 
meadows, down by Sandy Pond and the brooklets, 
and there the young men met the maidens, and 
through generations the most momentous question 
of life was then wont to be put, and the answer to it 
given. By the older and more sedate, the news of 
the day was canvassed, and the issues of politics de- 
bated; on the porch and about the meeting-house 
— there, during the first year of the life of the town, 
the bloody defeat of Braddock was discussed ; and, 

' Mr. Porter's Discourse, p. 75. Dr. Stearns died July 26, 1826. 
The warrant for the next annual town-meeting bore date February 1 9, 
1827. In it was the following : — 

" Article 7. To know the pleasure of the Town respecting the Stove 
lately put up in the Publick Meetinghouse — Whether the Town will 
Defray the Expense of the same, or any part thereof, or give leave to 
have it remain where it is, or adopt any measures respecting said stove, 
and provid wood for the same, also provid Storage for the wood in the 
Meetinghouse as the Town see fit and say how it shall be taken care of 
and by whom. . . . 

"Voted to have the Stove remain in the Publick Meetinghouse in 
Lincoln where it now is, and voted the Congregational or religious 
society in said Town pay the Expence of said Stove. Also voted the 
selectmen provide wood, and a place for the storage of the wood to be 
used or burnt when necessary to have fire in said Stove." 

59 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

a little later, the events and vicissitudes of the Seven 
Years' War. Then, in 1757, the massacre of Fort 
George, and, in 1758, the repulse of Abercrombie 
at Ticonderoga spread a panic through Massachu- 
setts, a thrill of which doubtless found expression at 
Lincoln ; Wolfe's death on the Plains of Abraham 
followed, with the fall of Quebec and the English 
conquest of Canada ; and, at last, before the town 
was yet in its "teens," came the close of the "old 
French War." Subsequently, in 1765, the Stamp Act 
was uppermost in mind, with that long succession 
of issues culminating for Lincoln with the 19th of 
April, 1775. Then, for the only time in its history 
as a town, the smoke of an enemy's camp-fire curled 
up within Lincoln limits. 

In every way, that revolutionary period seems to 
have been one of sore tribulation for the town ; and, 
as was always apt to be the case, the trouble cen- 
tred on the meeting-house porch, and there found 
expression. It was a civil trouble ; and, as was tra- 
ditionally proper, the Church was divided against 
itself. The Rev. Mr. Lawrence was even suspected of 
insufficient patriotism. To such a ripeness did this 
suspicion grow, that, greatly to his indignation, his 
private letters were tampered with by the so-called 
Committee of Safety. A crisis seems to have been 
reached during the autumn of 1774, — the months 
following the Boston tea-party, and the closing of 
the port of Boston. One Sabbath morning during 
that season, the Lincoln air, tense with excitement, 
was, it is said, full of rumors. The people gathered 

60 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

about the meeting-house at an unwonted hour, and 
there was talk of not allowing the minister to enter 
his pulpit. More neighborly and wiser counsels pre- 
vailed ; but the closing years of the Lawrence pas- 
torate were troubled. Indeed, the unhappy minister 
seems to have been worried into his grave ; for, while 
he died in April, 1780, only a year previous he had 
been arraigned at three successive church meetings 
because of " a jealousy " that he had " not been 
friendly to his country in respect to the contest be- 
tween Great Britain and America." After much 
wrangling it had been decided " by a great majority " 
to "drop the affair in dispute," the " circumstances 
and particular instances " alleged appearing on ex- 
amination " trifling and insufRcient." ' That Mr. 
Lawrence was a Tory has been denied, and certainly 
was not proven : but it is clear that he was far from 
being an ardent patriot ; and, at a time when his 
parishioners were thoroughly aroused by great events 
transpiring, he " halted for a time between two opin- 
ions, and allowed his trumpet to give an uncertain 
sound." 

But, as I have said, the story of Lincoln church 

■ The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Proceedings, p. 23. 
The Rev. Micah Lawrence, a cousin of William Lawrence, a graduate 
of Harvard in the class of 1759, ^^o taught school in Lincoln for a 
time shortly after graduation, was a pronounced loyalist. R. M. Law- 
rence's Historical Sketches, p. 84. Chambers Russell was dead, but his 
nephew. Dr. Charles Russell, who had inherited his uncle's place in 
Lincoln, practising here as a physician, was a pronounced Tory, and 
in 1775 went to Martinique. He left Lincoln on the 19th of April, 
1775, — an extremely suggestive coincidence. 

61 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

has been written ; and for me now to repeat it would 
be but to tell once more an already twice-told tale. 
Yet Lincoln was first organized as a church precinct, 
and its political incorporation did not greatly alter 
the original purpose. For a whole century the his- 
tory of its church was the history of Lincoln ; and, 
as contrasted with other and neighboring towns, — 
its sisters of the Massachusetts family, — I cannot 
here find, after its first pastorate, anything distinctive. 
The initial period — the Lawrence regime, if it may 
be so termed — was individual, and more or less per- 
turbed : but it carried the town practically through 
the revolutionary troubles, for the second pastor was 
not installed (November 7, 178 1) until a month after 
that momentous 19th of October which witnessed 
the surrender at Yorktown. Thenceforth, and for 
nearly ninety years, the life of Lincoln presented no 
features peculiar to itself Its story is one of mono- 
tonous existence, — the slow development of a Mas- 
sachusetts community, exclusively agricultural. It 
can be studied in the records of its town-meetings, its 
schools, and its churches ; and, perhaps, most clearly 
of all, in the annual tax levy. 

In his poem entitled " The Deacon's Masterpiece, 
or The Wonderful * One-Hoss Shay,' " — and that 
famous conveyance, let me in passing observe, was 
built, we are told, in the year (1755) following the 
incorporation of your town, — it and Lincoln thus 
came into organized being within nineteen months of 
each other, — in his well-known poem, I was saying. 
Dr. Holmes remarks, truly enough, — 

62 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

" Little of all we value here 
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 
Without both feeling and looking queer ; ' * 

and so It is always interesting, and usually suggestive, 
to revert to an exact century since. This being 1904, 
what was Lincoln's record in 1804? Let us hunt it 
up in the town-books. Lincoln then had a popu- 
lation of 740 souls; it now has iioo. Its entire 
annual appropriations in 1804, exclusive of the min- 
ister's salary and the rent of his house, amounted to 
I1410, or $1.90 to each inhabitant; they last year 
aggregated ^21,673, o^ ?i9-70 to each inhabitant, 
almost exactly a tenfold increase. The school sys- 
tem of the town then involved an annual outlay of 
$500; last year it cost I6500. For maintenance of 
its roads the town voted in 1804 the sum of I400 ; 
this year it calls for I4000, last year it cost $6000. 
Our poor and insane last year cost us $1000; in 
1804 the sum of I500 was required. But of this 
item in town expenditure I shall have more to say 
presently. Meanwhile, looking over the lists of 
officials of the two years a century apart, it is curious 
to observe how the same names appear. In 1804 
they had seven town-meetings ; we last year got 
along with three. A century ago Samuel Hoar was, 
when present, the moderator ; in his absence, Dea- 
con Samuel Farrar. None of the name of Hoar 
now live in Lincoln ; but it is inseparably associated 
with the mother town, and the Samuel Hoar of the 
present generation was selected to address you to- 
day; only when he, after long deliberation and with 

63 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

strongly expressed regret, felt constrained to decline, 
did I assume the duty. It was well; for he has since 
fallen by the wayside. Ten days only have passed 
since we witnessed his obsequies.' 

Recurring to the record of 1 804, a Wheeler was 
then town-clerk. A Brooks was a selectman ; while 
among the other officials appear the names of FHnt, 
Bemis, Baker, Hartwell, and Tarbell. Samuel Hoar 
that year represented the town in the General Court, 
having received twenty-seven votes as against thir- 
teen thrown for Samuel Farrar, and two for Captain 
J. Hartwell. But 1804 was also the year of a 
national election, and Thomas Jefferson was chosen 
for a second term. Prior to 1804 the Massachu- 
setts presidential electors had, as a rule, been named 
by the General Court, as was the early practice in 
most of the States; but, in 1804, they were chosen 
directly by the people. Throughout the troubled 
period of the Napoleonic wars, Lincoln seems to 
have been a strong Republican, or Anti-Federalist, 
town ; so, this year, its vote was sixty-six for the 
Jefferson ticket, to eighteen for the electors pledged 
to vote for Charles C. Pinckney, the candidate of the 
Federalists. 

» Both Senator George Frisbie Hoar and Samuel Hoar were invited 
to deliver the address on this occasion. Each felt obliged to decline: — 
Senator Hoar, who had passed much of his earlier life in Lincoln, and 
entertained a feeling of warm affection for the town, because of that 
failing health which proved premonitory of his death on the 30th of the 
following September ; Samuel Hoar, then in his sixtieth year, was taken 
suddenly ill, with a cerebral difficulty, early in April preceding this 
anniversary, and, dying at Concord on Monday, the i ith of that month, 
was there buried on the 1 3th. 

64 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

A hundred years ago no steps had yet been taken 
to separate church from state. As it had been from 
the beginning, so was it still — congregation and 
town were one; and, in 1804, stimulated probably 
by the minister, there was in Lincoln, not a religious 
or political movement, but, much less open to ques- 
tion, a singing revival. At the same time the inte- 
rior arrangements of the meeting-house were in ques- 
tion. So the two matters, taken up together, were 
dealt with comprehensively, — in a large way, as we 
would express it. In the first place, an appropria- 
tion was voted for the " incouragement of Church 
Music;" and, next, a special gallery was planned, 
" to convene the singers." The town was, however, 
thrifty ; the period of municipal extravagance was 
still in the remote future, and it was planned that 
the alterations in the interior of the meeting-house 
were not only to pay for themselves, but should bring 
a handsome surplus into the treasury. The votes 
then passed in town-meeting, the reports made and 
the action taken, are curiously illustrative of the 
little republic, and the business-like way in which 
its affairs were managed. To-day, they constitute a 
study in polity.' 

' December 12, 1803 (vol. ii, p. 494) : "Voted, to do something 
to incourage Church music in this place." Then, "Voted, that the 
sum of Fifty Dollars be assessed and paid by the inhabitants of this 
Town for the incouragement of Church Music." Then, "Voted to 
choose a Committee to take from the Treasury and lay out the fifty 
dollars to the best advantage to incourage singing — and made choice 
of Sam'I Hoar, Esq., Thos. Wheeler, Capt. Abner Mather, Elij. Fisk 
and Eleazer Brooks, Jr." 

65 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

As a result of the simply planned meeting-house 
alterations, sixteen additional pews were provided, 
" twelve Pews in the Gallery in said House which 
are numbered and four Pews on the lower floor ; " 
and all these it was ordered " shall be sold at pub- 
lick Vendue to the highest bidder." They were so 
sold, the town-meeting adjourning that the auction 
might take place. 

The financial outcome of the " Vendue " seems 
to have exceeded the most sanguine expectations. 

May 7, 1804: "Voted, to accommodate the Singing Society with 
convenient seats in the Front Gallery.'" 

"To act on a Refer' d Article, which is to hear the report of their 
Committee Chosen by the Town, for the purpose of viewing the 
Meeting House in order that the Singers may be accommodated with 
convenient seats." 

The Committee report as follows : " We the Subscribers being 
Chosen a Committee at the last Town Meeting in order to see which 
is the best way to finish the front gallery in order to convene the singers, 
and to take under consideration the first article — beg leave to report 
as follows : — It is our opinion that it is best to Build a Porch in the 
front of the Meeting House 12 feet Square and 14 feet Posts, and to 
swell the front Gallery, and build two convenient seats for the Singers 
— and to Build a row of Pews round the Gallerys, and to alter the 
porch Doors in the Gallerys so as to have them in the center of the 
porches and to have an Alley to divide the Side Gallerys — also to 
build four Pews below. We have calculated the probable expense will 
be 450 Dollars and it is probable the Pews will fetch 900 Dollars the 
Ballance in favor of the Town is 450 Dollars, all which is humbly 
submitted. 

" Voted, To accept the Report of their Committee. 

<< Voted, To choose a Committee of Seven to carry into effect the 
subject matter of the above Report. 

" Made Choice of Sam'l Hoar, Esq., Dea'n Sam'l Farrar, Major 
Sam'l Hastings, Mr. Isaac Munro, Doct'r G. Tarbell, Mr. Abner 
Wheeler & Lt. Elijah Fiske." 

66 



The Codma7i House 
(P- 135) 




%?*KSii 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

It was, it must be admitted, a good deal like sell- 
ing boxes in a modern city opera-house; but the 
demand for special Sabbath church privileges was, 
in the Lincoln of 1804, unquestionably brisk. The 
committee having the matter in charge had " calcu- 
lated" the expense of the improvements at ^450, 
and the receipts from the sale of new pews at $900; 
resulting in a " Ballance in favor of the Town " of 
I450. The transaction in fact, when the " Vendue " 
finished, was found to have netted the town a profit 
of no less than $762.35. At the " Vendue," Mr. 
Amos Bemis — a family name since associated in an- 
other and larger way with Lincoln's public edifices 

seems to have become the owner of one of the pews 
in the gallery; for, the sale having taken place on the 
loth of September, the warrant for the next town- 
meeting, called for the 5th of November, contained 
the following article : — "4th. To see if the Town 
will give Liberty to Mr. Amos Bemis to put in a 
Window in his Pew in the Gallery in the North- 
west corner of the Meeting house, agreeable to his 
request." And presently the following vote was 
passed, and recorded : — " 4th Article. Granted 
Mr. Amos Bemis Liberty to put a Window in his 
Pew in the Gallery as Requested." 

Such were the questions which engaged the atten- 
tion of the town an hundred years ago ; such the 
scale of its expenditure. Nor, for a quarter of a 
century, did any change take place. At last, in 1829 
the separation of state from church was effected, and 
thereafter the prudential affairs of the parish did not 

67 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

affect those of the town." Accordingly, from 1830 
to the present time, we have an unbroken record of 

' The Rev. Elijah Demond succeeded Dr. Stearns. He was the 
last pastor called under the old system, and prior to the total separa- 
tion of church from town. The change in relations of pastor and peo- 
ple which had already taken place is apparent in the vote in the Lincoln 
records. The town now did not seek to settle a pastor ; it hired a 
preacher. The article in the warrant, and the vote, were as follows: — 

September 5, 1827 — "2d. To see if the Town will Concur with 
the Church in giving Rev. Mr. Elijah Demond an invitation to Settle 
over them as their Gospel Minister, and if so, to vote what they will 
give him for Sallary, annually, and what incouragement other vrays 
they will give. . . . 

"Voted, to give Rev. Elijah Demond an invitation to settle over the 
Church and people of this Town as their Gospel Minister. 

"Also voted to pay him for Sallery, annually five hundred and fifty 
dollars, so long as he performs his Ministerial labours in this Town, 
with the provision, that the connection may be dissolved, by either 
party giving the other, six months notice." 

On the nth of the following month (October) another town-meeting 
was held, the warrant for which contained the following article — 
"2nd, To see if the Town will make any alterations in the conditions 
of the call which they voted to give Rev. Mr. Demond at their last 
meeting or act anything respecting the same, and in case he shall accept 
the call, to make proper arrangment for his installation. . . . 

" Voted, to dispence with that part of the condition in the Invitation 
voted to Rev. Mr. Elijah Demond at the last Town meeting which 
provides for the dissolution of connection by either party giving the 
other six months notice 

" Then voted to reconsider the last vote 

" then voted. That the conditions of the call given to the Rev'd 
Mr. Demond by this Town at their last meeting be so far altered, that 
a morgority of two-thirds of the legal voters shall be necessary, on the 
part of the Town, to cause a disolution of the connection, and should 
such a majority ever be obtained ; or should their Minister, on his 
part, give notice of his desire of dismission, in either case, a Councill 
of Ministers and delegates from other Churches shall be called to 
advise thereon. . . . 

"Then Rev'd Mr. Demond excepted the call voted him the last 

68 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

the amounts annually raised by taxation. It is curi- 
ous and suggestive. During the five years between 
1834 and 1839 inclusive, the average annual levy 
was $1,878.58. The first century of town life closed, 
unnoticed and uncommemorated, in 1854. During 
the five ensuing years (i 856-1 860) the average 
annual levy was I4100. The increase of public ex- 
penditure during nearly the lifetime of a generation, 
on account of roads, schools and all the incidents of 
corporate existence, had been but $2200 per annum. 
Then came the Civil War with its continuous calls 
for men. It was an altogether exceptional period. 
Yet the money burden that terrible conflict imposed 
on Lincoln was not considerable, — it amounted in 
the aggregate to only $ 1 5,000, the average levy for the 
five years 1861 to 1865, inclusive, being $7,113.80, 
or $3000 more than during the previous similar 
period. Then, for the next ten years or so, town 
affairs resumed the even tenor of their ancient way, 
and not until 1870 is a change observable. Then, 
first in the history of the town whether in time of 
peace or in time of war, the annual tax levy passed 
the ten thousand dollar mark, not again to fall be- 
low it. The older and simpler existence had come 
to a natural close, though one gradually approached, 
and Lincoln entered on a new and more highly 
developed life. 

Let us for a moment recur to the first period, that 
anterior to 1870, and its annual tax levies. Very 

meetings with the above mentioned alterations as they are proposed, 
and voted in his presents, at this meeting." 

69 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

simple as compared with those of more recent years, 
they reveal a niggard expenditure and a most rigid 
scrutiny. The amounts are small ; the accounting 
exact. Every item was jealously observed. The three 
great heads of outgo were the roads, the schools, 
and the support of the poor ; and it is very notice- 
able how large a proportion, as compared with the 
present, the cost of maintaining the poor bore to 
the total outgo. It now constitutes one twenty-fifth 
part of it, or only 4 per cent.; in 1833, seventy 
years ago, it constituted 23 per cent. ; and, in i860, 
8 per cent. How explain this? Lincoln was a 
sparsely peopled town ; but its people were homo- 
geneous, thrifty, and fairly well-to-do. As such com- 
munities went, it was moral and temperate, — nei- 
ther so moral nor so temperate as now, but in both 
respects probably above the average of the time. In 
its population was no appreciable foreign element; ' 
substantially, it was pure American stock. Whence 
then this pauperism ? The answer is not far to seek ; 
nor is the page which reveals it pleasant reading. 
It is a page now happily closed. 

In those times, as now, the demented were classed 
with the poor. I have already alluded to the fact 
that in its earliest period Lincoln was without any 
physician who would now rank as educated. Later, 
the estimable, as well as educated. Dr. Charles Rus- 

' Even as late as 1875, — twenty years after the opening of the 
Fitchburg railroad, — no less than 77 per cent, of those inhabiting 
Lincoln were of American birth. The town-born constituted 34 per 
cent, of the whole. 

70 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

sell served the little community in that capacity ; 
he, however, was driven away as a Tory in April, 
1775, and, five years later, died in exile. But, apart 
from physicians, surgeons or trained nurses, I have 
been unable to find any evidence of a drug-store in 
the eighteenth century Lincoln, much less of a hos- 
pital. The town was without an almshouse also; for, 
though provision for an almshouse was at one time 
made through the bequest of a public-spirited towns- 
man, a mere two-room tenement was forthcoming ; 
and this, after trial of the experiment, was discon- 
tinued. Needless then to say that Lincoln neither 
had an asylum for the insane within its limits, nor 
access to one elsewhere. There is a curious theory 
sometimes advanced that insanity is in New England 
steadily increasing ; and, in support of this disturb- 
ing contention, the statistics of former times are 
compared with those of the present. In point of fact 
there are no statistics of those former times. Now the 
insane are carefully gathered together, enumerated, 
and scientifically cared for ; then, they were ignored 
or neglected, and often brutally abused. They were 
allowed, if harmless, to wander in the streets, — the 
village idiots ; or they were herded in the almshouse, 
if there chanced to be an almshouse. Some years 
ago I found in the records of Braintree a vote appro- 
priating money to one Samuel Spear to " build a 
little house seven foot long and five foot wide, and 
set it by his house to secure his sister, good wife 
"Witty, being distracted, and provide for her." The 
wretched lunatic was housed like a dog, in a ken- 

71 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

nel by her brother's door. And again, by another 
town-record entry of a later day, Josiah Owen was 
voted " Twenty pounds money provided he gives 
bond under his hand to cleare the Towne forever of 
Ebenezer Owen's distracted daughter." What, under 
these circumstances, became of the unfortunate girl, 
presumably Josiah's orphan niece, it is perhaps as 
well not to inquire. But, as respects the care of its 
poor and insane, Lincoln then pursued the usual 
course. With its records I am less familiar than 
with the records of other Massachusetts towns not 
dissimilar, and so cannot quote chapter and verse ; 
but in the records of Weymouth I once came across 
the following action of the town-meeting of March 
II, 1 77 1 : "Voted to sell the Poor that are main- 
tained by the Town for this present year at a Vendue 
to the lowest bidder." This tells the whole story, 
— a lamentation, and an ancient tale of wrong ! ' 

' In the North American Re'vieiv for January, 1849 (vol. Ivi, pp. 
171-191), is an article entitled "Insanity in Massachusetts," written 
by the celebrated Dr. S. G. Howe. In it he describes in detail some 
cases of treatment of the insane which he had himself "witnessed, 
during the last three months, in places within thirty miles of Boston. " 
He found the demented of both sexes "in the almshouses, shut up 
in cold and cheerless rooms, sometimes chained to the walls, often 
confined in narrow cages, without a chair or bed, and with nothing 
but the straw on which they lie down like the brutes." He cites with 
painful particularity cases exactly parallel to those of ' ' good wife 
Witty Spear " and "Ebenezer Owen's distracted daughter." Nor was 
this eighteenth century treatment ; it was the practice of sixty years 
ago. The cases were, moreover, in no way exceptional. Dr. Howe 
asserted that if ' ' allowed to make extracts from the journal of a friend, 
who has traversed every part of Massachusetts on an errand of mercy 
. . . we could fill a volume." Yet Massachusetts was then already 

72 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

Lincoln, in the earlier period, — that ideal age of 
gold so commonly referred to as the "good old 
times," — having no almshouse or asylum, farmed 
out its poor and insane. They were annually put 
up at auction, and their care intrusted to whoever 
agreed to assume it, — undertook to feed, lodge, 
clothe and warm the wretched outcasts, — at the 
lowest rate. Last year, with an appropriation on 
that account less than twice as large as its average 
appropriation on the same account seventy years 
ago, Lincoln cared for four insane dependent upon 
it ; the previous year for six. Beyond these it had 
no paupers to support ; — only tramps to enter- 
tain ! Nor are our records now disfigured, as then 
they were, by long lists of entries notifying those 
without visible means of support at once to return 
to the place whence they came. Judging by the 
record, eighteenth century charity certainly began at 
home ; as also it was indisputably cold. So, through 
all those years Lincoln's appropriation of $400, or 
thereabouts, a year, covered not only its charge for 
pauperism, but the cost for it of almshouse, hospi- 

far in advance among communities, American or foreign, in care of 
the insane. Elsewhere in the same paper (p. 183) Dr. Howe says: 
" Under the name of economy, the insane and idiots of our own coun- 
try have been and are now (1843) ''^pt in a state of physical degrada- 
tion which is painful to them and demoralizing to others. In many 
towns their keeping for one year is hired out at public auction, in 
town-meeting, to the man who will agree to keep souls and bodies 
together for the smallest number of dollars and cents." Selectmen 
had even made it matter of boast that they had "kept town paupers 
alive three hundred and sixty-five days upon eight cents and five mills 
per day." 

73 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

tal, and asylum. Viewed in that light, it cannot be 
called extravagance; but the character of the care 
bestowed admits of question. 

Turning from the poor and the insane to the 
schools, the record is not much better. Upon " the 
little red school-house " period, sometimes so greatly 
lamented, it is not necessary to dilate. In the case 
of Lincoln, it is pre-natal, — a part of the histories 
of Concord and Lexington and Weston. Referring 
to the conditions then prevailing, and the educa- 
tional methods in vogue, the historian of Lincoln 
— and he was sufficiently near to speak thereof with 
knowledge — exclaims : " What pen shall describe 
the schools, the teaching, the poverty of the appli- 
ances of learning ? Lead pencils, steel pens, and 
ruled paper were unknown. The exercises consisted 
of reading, spelling, the study of arithmetic, and 
learning to write. These exercises, and the disci- 
pline of the school — which was usually in accord- 
ance with the maxim of Solomon — occupied the 
sessions." 

But this, in justice be it distinctly understood, was 
in the earlier and provincial period, — a period pre- 
historic, — beyond the memory of the oldest living 
inhabitant. With the installation into the pastorate 
of the Rev. Charles Stearns, Lincoln seems to have 
entered on a new educational life. This was in 178 1, 
before the close of the War of Independence; and 
the impetus then given was not thereafter suffered 
to die wholly away. Shattuck, who wrote as early as 
1835, ^^ ^^^^ years only after Mr. Stearns's death, 

74 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

bears his testimony that Lincoln had always given 
liberal support to her common schools, and adds 
that she had been " rewarded in the distinguished 
character of her educated sons ; " and the number 
of those among them who were graduates of Har- 
vard is, in the case of a town which never up to the 
close of the nineteenth century numbered a popu- 
lation of twelve hundred, certainly most creditable.' 
Among the names of the teachers of Lincoln's 
grammar school are to be found those of Timothy 
Farrar, the centenarian jurist of New Hampshire, 
born here in 1747; of Fisher Ames, the orator- 
statesman, born in Dedham in 1758 ; and of Jacob 
Bigelow, the eminent physician who subsequently 
revolutionized the practice of medicine, born in Sud- 
bury in 1787. These are great names to inscribe 
over the portal of one rural school, — names to feel 
pride in. But, according to Mr. Porter,^ another 
bearer of a great name bore emphatic testimony to 
the literary atmosphere which prevailed in Lincoln, 
when, in the early forties, Theodore Parker publicly 
informed the residents of Lexington that the " little 
town on the hill yonder [Lincoln] has long main- 

» Mr. Wheeler gives (Hurd's Middlesex, vol. ii, pp. 627-631) a 
list of Lincoln college graduates from the incorporation of the town to 
1886. They number thirty-one in all, of whom twenty took degrees 
at Harvard, four at Amherst, three at Brown, three at Dartmouth, 
and one at Williams. The name of Farrar occurs most frequently in 
the list, ten having graduated between 1755 and 1839. The Hartwells 
follow with four.. Samuel Hoar graduated at Harvard in 1802; Professor 
John Farrar in 1803. Both were prepared for college at Dr. Stearns's 
Liberal School. 

2 One Hundred and Fiftieth Anni<versary of First Church, p. 94. 

75 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

tained so high a standard that Lexington has de- 
pended upon her for many of its teachers." Lincoln 
never rose to that grade in population which imposed 
on her as a town the obligation of a Latin School, 
but, in 1793, Mr. Stearns and others instituted here 
a " liberal school," as it was denominated. We are 
told that the old laird of Auchinleck contemptuously 
said of the famous Dr. Johnson that " he keppit a 
schule and cau'd it an Academy ; " the reverse was 
the case with Mr. Stearns and his associates, for 
they installed an academy, and modestly called it a 
school. But what, in this respect, Mr. Stearns did 
has already been gratefully recorded, and I shall not 
repeat what others, far better informed, have in this 
respect said.' But there is reason to claim that, 
throughout the first half of the last century, — and 
Mr. Stearns, be it remembered, did not die until 
1826, — the schools of Lincoln were exceptionally 
good. In the veracious record of his famous voy- 
ages. Captain Lemuel Gulliver tells us that the King 
of Brobdingnag " gave it for his opinion, that who- 
ever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of 
grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only 
one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, 
and do more essential service to his country, than 
the whole race of politicians put together." The 
sphere of duty and of influence of Charles Stearns 

I See Mr. Bradley's "Historical Discourse" (pp. 33, 34), and 
Sermon by Rev. E. G. Porter (pp. 69, 70, 94), in Proceedings on 
Ohser'vance of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anni<versary ; also Mr. 
Wheeler's "Lincoln " in Kurd's History of Middlesex County, vol. ii, 
pp. 632, 633. 

76 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

was not large, but within that sphere what Dr. 
Johnson wrote of another might be recorded of 
him : — 

"His virtues walk'd their narrow round. 
Nor made a pause, nor left a void : 
And sure the eternal Master found 
His single talent well employ'd." 

The second pastor of the Lincoln church did 
more than make " two blades of grass to grow upon 
a spot of ground where only one grew before ; " 
he found the schools of the community to which he 
ministered poor, and he left them comparatively 
good. What greater service could he have rendered 
his people ? 

But before dismissing the schools of that earlier 
period, I cannot refrain from quoting the following 
excellent precepts, laid down as long ago as 1817 for 
the guidance of Lincoln teachers and pupils. There 
is about them a quaintness and simplicity in these 
days refreshing: — "In respect to the internal order 
of Schools, the Committee recommend that the Mas- 
ters insist on Good Order and enforce it by such pru- 
dent measures as shall be likely to produce that effect. 
That they strongly recommend to the scholars' atten- 
tion cleanliness of person and decency of dress, and 
that the scholars make it known to their parents 
and Guardians that it is expected of them. It is 
highly approved by the Committee that the Masters 
do whatever is in their power to preserve and pro- 
mote good morals and decent and polite behaviour 
among the Students. That each school be reduced 

77 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

to as few classes as may be convenient, and that in 
each class the Students take their rank according to 
Merit, particularly in spelling." 

But, when all is said, the record of Lincoln in all 
these respects, though quaint and graphic and instruc- 
tive in its way, is but the record of well-nigh innu- 
merable other towns somewhat similarly placed. The 
schools were simple and ungraded; the school-houses 
mean, bare and remote; the teaching in them was, 
perhaps, unscientific; but the annual tuition of each 
scholar cost five dollars, whereas now it costs twenty- 
five. The roads were poor and unfit for heavy team- 
ing; but the traffic over them was light, and the cost 
of their maintenance nominal. All this, however, is 
not history; no more history than the daily diary of 
him who keeps a shop, or cultivates a farm. From 
neither the last nor the first can anything new or of 
value be educed. But what else is there to record ? 
In his very sympathetic, as well as scholarly address, 
— for it was not, as there denominated, a " Ser- 
mon," — delivered here now six years since, my 
friend, — now, alas, dead, — the Rev. Edward G. 
Porter, observed that " Lincoln's part in the French 
war, in the Revolution, and in our subsequent wars, 
remains yet to be fully written." I do not think so. 
The story has been told, — carefully told, and by 
those who have studied the subject in each detail, — 
eloquently told from every point of view. A tablet 
by the wayside on the old Lexington-Concord road 
commemorates the fact that it was in Lincoln Paul 
Revere's ride on the night of April i8, 1775, was 

78 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

brought to a close; and a more modest affidavit 
tells us that, next day, Abijah Pierce, of Lincoln, 
" colonel of the minute-men," went up to Concord 
bridge "armed with nothing but a cane." But it 
is when one goes beyond the general and formal 
record of the day and comes in contact with its par- 
ticular incidents, that April, 1775, ^ives again, and 
we realize not only what real men and women had 
their being here, but we feel again as they felt. For 
instance, in April, 1850, Concord celebrated the 
seventy-fifth anniversary of its famous fight. Two 
survivors of the day were then present, Jonathan 
Harrington, of Lexington, of the age of ninety-two, 
and Amos Baker, of Lincoln, then ninety-four. Four 
years later, in March, 1 854, 1 remember being present 
at the funeral of Jonathan Harrington, the last sur- 
vivor of Lexington fight ; for Amos Baker had died 
here in Lincoln three months after the 1850 anniver- 
sary at Concord. He lies just opposite us now, in the 
family tomb, on the edge of the old burying-ground. 
But, three days after that celebration of 1 850 they re- 
corded his recollection of what had occurred seventy- 
five years before ; ' and it is instinct with life. He 
told how his "brother Nathaniel was then paying 
his addresses to the girl whom he afterwards mar- 
ried;" and, on the evening before the fight, was at the 
house on the Lexington road where she was staying. 
They must have been late callers in those days, for he 
there received the alarm from Dr. Prescott, who, the 

' "Oration by Robert Rantoul, Jr., and Account of the Union 
Celebration at Concord, Nineteenth April, 1850," pp. i33_i3c, 

79 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

inscription on the tablet tells us, did not escape the 
British outpost, and ride that way, until after two 
o'clock in the morning. Coming home, and alarm- 
ing his family, the father and five sons, with one son- 
in-law, — six Bakers and one Hosmer, — that morn- 
ing "joined the Lincoln company at the Brook, by 
Flint's, now Sandy, Pond, near the house of Zachary 
Smith." Amos there " loaded his gun with two balls, 
— ounce balls, — and powder accordingly." He saw 
the British troops move up towards Concord com- 
mon, and " the sun shone very bright on their bay- 
onets and guns ; " they had just marched through 
Lincoln. According to his own recollection, he was 
the only man from Lincoln who had a bayonet. His 
father got it " in the time of the French war." But 
the men with bayonets were put in the front when 
they made ready to march down to the bridge, be- 
cause it was not certain whether the British would 
fire, or whether they would charge bayonets without 
firing. "Then they saw the smoke of the town house, 
and Major Buttrick said — * Will you stand here, and 
see them burn the town down ? ' And the order was 
given to march, and we all marched down without 
any further argument. The British had got up two 
of the planks of the bridge. There were two soldiers 
killed at the bridge. I saw them when I went over 
the bridge lying, side by side, dead. Colonel Abijah 
Pierce got the gun of one of them, and armed him- 
self with it. Joshua Brooks, of Lincoln, was at the 
bridge, and was struck with a ball that cut through 
his hat, and drew blood on his forehead, and it looked 

80 



The Garfield House 

Residence of Mr. George R. Wheeler 

(p. 218) 



ti 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

as if it was cut with a knife. When we had fired at 
the bridge, and killed the British, Noah Parkhurst, 
ofLincoln,who was my right-hand man, said — 'Now, 
the war has begun, and no one knows when it will 
end.' " So Amos Baker, who followed the pursuit 
back to Lexington meeting-house, closes with this 
reflection on his feelings during that long, fatiguing 
experience : — "I verily believe that I felt better that 
day, take it all the day through, than if I had staid 
at home." This is history ; and, racy of the soil, it is 
characteristic of the people and of the time. Fighting 
before their own lintels and over their own hearth- 
stones, Jacob Baker, a veteran of the French wars 
and then a man of fifty-four, accompanied by his 
five sons and the husband of his daughter, join the 
mustering minute-men of Lincoln up by the outlet 
of Sandy Pond ; and, armed with the old flint-lock 
King's-arms and fowling-pieces, they hurry to Con- 
cord common, in time to see the glistening arms of 
the invading troops as they march in solid ranks 
up the road from Lexington. The very names of 
the father and his sons, biblical all, are characteristic 
of time and place, — Jacob, the father, and again a 
Jacob ; then Samuel, James, Nathaniel and Amos, 
with a brother-in-law Daniel ; and they assembled at 
the house of Zachary, later occupied by Jonas; the 
Colonel was Abijah ; and, during the engagement, 
Amos's right-hand man was Noah, while Joshua was 
struck by a bullet. 

Again, eighty-seven years later, and during the 
Civil War, one would look far to find a more typical 

8i 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

or creditable individual case and record than that of 
George Weston, of Lincoln stock, and one of Lin- 
coln's quota. A Harvard graduate, his story has been 
well, and perhaps sufficiently, told ; for he was of a 
goodly company.' Two years only a graduate, just 
entering on professional life, physically unequal to 
the hardships necessarily incident to all active mili- 
tary service, under every family inducement to re- 
main at home, he enlisted from an overruling sense 
of obligation. But in him, as in so many others, 
pluck supplying the lack of physical stamina, he 
proved faithful to the end. 

And yet there was another side to the record both 
in the War of Independence and in the Civil War. 
That other side, too, was developed in the case of 
Weston, and emphasized in one of his utterances, by 
chance handed down to us. His entrance into the 
service had been peculiarly creditable to him. For a 
young man to enlist, or rush into the training camp, 
during the summer and autumn of 1861, called for 
no courage, bespoke no sense of sacrifice or duty ; 
on the contrary, the restraint lay in not yielding to 
the universal military craze. As in the case of George 
Weston, many who then held back showed in so 
doing a suitable regard for home and domestic obli- 
gations. It was not so a year later. The glamour was 
now gone ; and, after the terrible fighting before 
Richmond and Washington in June, July and Au- 
gust, 1862, war showed itself for what it was, — 
something very grim. The tinsel was gone ; recruits 

* Harnjard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii, pp. 199-206. 
82 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

were sorely needed ; enlistments had stopped.' Then 
it was, five days before Antietam, in September, 
1862, just as the first draft was about to be ordered, 
that Weston stepped to the front. He volunteered. 
He did so, as he said at the time, because others, 
his friends and classmates, had gone to their deaths 
"just because I, and such as I, were not in our 
places to help them." Not from impulse did he 
act, but goaded to the sacrifice by that terrible New 
England conscience. 

Such was an individual case ; nor did it stand 
alone. But there was another side to that great 
experience ; a seamy side, and one now generally 

' The " craze" had passed away even before the close of the sum- 
mer of 1 861. "The black disaster of Bull Run still overshadowed 
the North. The five regiments in camp [in Massachusetts] lacked 
some 1700 men, and yet the daily returns from the recruiting officers 
for four of the regiments showed a total enlistment from the 14th 
to the i6th of August of only four men." (H. G. Pearson, Life of 
J. A. Andrenju, vol. i, p. 244.) A year later, and at the time young 
Weston volunteered, the situation was much worse. Even in early 
June, 1862, the militia organizations would not respond to an emer- 
gency call. Governor Andrew then wrote : " It nvas not so a year since. 
No one was reluctant. No one stipulated for short terms. Twenty 
regiments eagerly pressed for leave to go for any term however indefi- 
nite. Now, a battery Co. whose enlistment began a week yesterday 
has not 85 men. And they are only enlisting for Six Months. The 
war looks to be of indefinite length." {lb., vol. ii, p. 23.) As the 
struggle progressed the difficulties in procuring voluntary enlistments 
steadily increased, and the character of those enlisting deteriorated. 
Finally the filling of contingents became a recognized business, and 
passed into the hands of a set of brokers and crimps, of whom as a 
class it is said, "The sum total of honesty among them was probably 
as small as in any set of men to be found outside prison." {lb., 
p. 144.) 

83 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

passed over In silence, — quietly ignored, in fact. 
Yet it was the side from which the lesson of greater 
value to posterity is to be drawn. The mistakes 
— stupid, unscientific, cruel, costly — of 1778 and 
1862 should not be repeated; and that they may 
not be repeated, they must be coldly set forth and 
emphasized strongly. The plain, historic fact is that, 
individual instances like that of George Weston 
apart, after the first outburst of excitement which 
carried the whole Baker family to Concord had sub- 
sided, the record of Lincoln, as of Lincoln's sister 
towns, whether in the War of Independence ' or in 
the Civil War, is in my judgment not one to dwell 
upon with feelings of complacency. As a whole, 
and when studied in the hard, matter-of-fact entries 
of your town-books, it is far from being a record 

' The record of Lincoln in the War of Independence was worked 
up with great labor and assiduity by Mr. Wheeler, and a list of the 
town's revolutionary soldiers is to be found in Kurd's Middlesex (vol. 
ii, pp. 620-624). The list is, however, admittedly imperfect and 
incomplete. The only deduction to be drawn from it is that the war 
was carried on in a most ineffective and extravagant way as respects 
both men and money. Enlistments were voluntary ; terms of service 
varied ; extravagant bounties were paid. But it is also apparent that, in 
proportion to population and wealth, the War of Independence weighed 
far more heavily than the Civil War on the resources of the commu- 
nity. It lasted twice as long ; there was no large floating and foreign 
population to draw on for recruits ; the means of transportation were 
limited j the material at command was small. Mr. Wheeler says that 
in 1781 the town, with a population of 750, paid ^73 10 s. "hard 
money," or ^255, to each of twelve men enlisting for three years in 
the Continental service. This represented for that single year one 
man in twelve of the entire arms-bearing population of the town; and 
$255 in specie then would have been the equivalent of at least $1500 
in currency during the Civil War. 

84 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

either of eager patriotism or of unthinking self- 
sacrifice. 

But here bear with me for a moment while I 
indulge in a brief disquisition ; as, perchance, what 
I have just said may grate harshly on the ears of 
some, offending their most cherished preconceptions. 
Briefly, between 1861 and 1865 I served myself 
through years of actual warfare, and, since, I have 
searched somewhat deeply into our records of that 
period. My study has emphasized my recollection ; 
so, on this subject, I feel. I have come to think 
that neither in our War of Independence nor in our 
Civil War did Massachusetts, or our Massachusetts 
towns, evince a military instinct, or rise to an equality 
with the occasion. In other words, I hold that no 
community has any right to go to war unless it is 
prepared to make war in a way at once scientific, 
business-like, and effective. To pursue any differ- 
ent course is to the last degree wasteful, dangerous, 
bloody, foolish. Yet this is what Massachusetts, and 
the Massachusetts towns, did in both their great re- 
cent war ordeals. The course pursued was as little 
creditable to their intelligence, as to their sense of 
thrift in money, or of the sanctitude of blood. In 
each case there was at first a great outburst of zeal 
and patriotism, — a rush to arms. Then followed 
coolness and huckstering. With the memory of the 
first outburst, — Lexington, in the one case, Sumter, 
in the other, — occasions like this are resonant ; that 
only is dwelt upon. What ensued is ignored ; but 
your record-books tell the story. The only strenu- 

85 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

ous effort was the effort to escape military service ; 
food for powder was purchased in open market, and 
at a price advancing by leaps and bounds. The fact 
is that neither in 1778 nor in 1862 did the young 
men rush to the colors ; nor would the community 
order and submit to a draft. Patriotism was sold and 
bought. Flesh-and-blood was so much a pound, — 
twelve dollars, being, if I remember right, the top quo- 
tation. We carried, it is true, both struggles through 
to triumphant conclusions ; but was this method of 
doing it creditable, or economical, or humane ? Was 
it a thing to be proud of or to dilate on? I hold it 
was not. If others here think it was, I commend to 
their consideration the pages of the Lincoln town- 
books. It would, in 1780 and in 1863, have been 
immensely creditable to Lincoln did it therein appear 
that, in view of the war, the men were divided and 
enrolled by ages, — the married and the unmarried, 
brothers and sole supports of mothers, — and the 
draft had then been rigidly and swiftly enforced. If a 
community elects war, its young men should be made 
to go to war. So doing should not be a matter of 
choice or of bargaining. Had this severe, scientific 
and logical course been adopted, and ruthlessly pur- 
sued either in 1776 or in i86i,I risk nothing in assert- 
ing that both the War of Independence and the Civil 
War would have cost in time, in treasure, in anguish 
and in blood, but a tithe of what they did cost. As 
it was, you sent forward the bounty-bought refuse of 
the city slums and county jails to associate with your 
George Westons if they survived, or to take their 

86 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

places when they fell ; while, by the system of re- 
plenishment in vogue, you compelled those at the 
front to undergo eight campaigns instead of four, and 
to fight two indecisive battles where one vigorously 
followed up should have sufficed. Were it germane 
to the history of Lincoln, I could myself tell you of 
bitter experiences with those latter-day substitutes for 
soldiers. 

One fact, however, should ever be borne in mind, 
— a fact already referred to, and which I now would 
emphasize. Once only during the last two centuries 
has an armed enemy crossed Lincoln's borders. The 
struggles in which, since her incorporation, she has 
been called upon to contribute, whether in money or 
in blood, have been remote ; nor, as such things go, 
were her sacrifices in them really considerable. Dur- 
ing the whole four years of our great civil conflict, 
for instance, Lincoln's entire quota amounted to not 
more than one in ten of her population, and of that 
actual population, — from among her own denizens, 
— it is open to question whether even one in twenty 
was sent by her to the front. Of her assessed valua- 
tion, the conflict of which so much is said cost her 
less than two dollars in a hundred. She did not see 
her hearths devastated, nor was death's bitter cup 
pressed home to her own lips ; she never felt the 
cruel stress and wicked waste of instant, grim-visaged 
war. Had that lot indeed been hers, it does not for 
a moment admit of doubt, the spirit of April, 1775, 
would have again flamed forth ; and, while as then, 
every arms-bearing man would have been found in 

87 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

the ranks, her substance would have been poured 
out like water spilt upon the plain. 

On this topic enough has in my judgment been 
said. In other respects, the roster — and it is a cred- 
itable one — of the town's conspicuous sons has been 
compiled by one conscientious investigator,' and 
eloquent mention made of certain of the more emi- 
nent among them by another, now recognized as 
past master of this description of tribute.^ Later, the 
general principles involved in our two great crises 
of national development were adequately outlined 
and emphasized by an orator very competent for the 
task, when, on the 26th of May, 1 892, you dedicated 
your town-hall.' Nothing on these topics has been 
left for this occasion. 

It is otherwise as respects your system of water 
supply. That undertaking, and its slow develop- 
ment, were not only events in Lincoln's story, but 
their treatment by one competent for the task, who, 
having been present at the town-meetings, was per- 
sonally familiar with the men concerned and had 
watched the course of events, — their treatment by 
such a person might, I say, be made a study as full of 
life and humor and character as Mrs. Gaskell's "Cran- 
ford." The development was initiated in 1872, and 
for thirty years thereafter it not only supplied a por- 
tion of the community with water, but the whole of 

» The Lincoln Church Manual, by Rev. H. J. Richardson, 1872. 

2 Senator George F. Hoar, Proceedings at the Dedication of the Lin- 
coln Library, August 5, 1864. 

3 William Everett, LL.D., of Quincy. 

88 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

it with an ever-present bone of unfailing contention. 
Indeed, echoes of that contention have not yet wholly 
died away, — their rumble is at times distinctly 
heard. Nor is that surprising; for I doubt if state 
or nation afford another instance of a like burden 
assumed by a purely rural community numbering but 
eight hundred souls, and those scattered over some 
seventeen square miles of territory, with no thickly 
peopled centres. The act was one of genuine states- 
manship; as such it implied in those who promoted 
it not only courage and foresight, but an absolute 
confidence in destiny. That in reality it was a move 
of self-protection, if not of self-preservation, is now 
apparent. But, in 1872, this was far from apparent; 
and Lincoln's birthright was then threatened. An 
offshoot of Concord in part, Lincoln was in immi- 
nent danger of having Concord preempt Sandy Pond; 
and, with it, a priority in right over Lincoln's great 
reservoir of one of God's most precious gifts to man. 
Of the two whose prescience, shrewdness and 
assiduity then saved for Lincoln its patrimony, — 
prevented the sacrifice thereof without even the pro- 
verbial mess-of-pottage return therefor, — both were 
within ten years still active in the town's affairs. 
To see them, and cooperate with them, was my privi- 
lege. One, the traditional town-clerk, has now gone 
before ; ' the other yet remains, wholly withdrawn 
from active participation in those proceedings over 

' James Lorin Chapin, died March i, 1902. Bom, 1823. Settled 
in Lincoln in 1845. Chairman of the Board of Selectmen and Town 
Treasurer, 1868 to 1876. Town Clerk, 1878 to 1902. 

89 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

which through so many years he exercised an influ- 
ence no less beneficial than potent. They were men 
of a type of which this age produces few, — a type, 
let me add, peculiar to New England and its town 
governments. Shrewd, humorous, crabbed perhaps 
at times and in a way, they were public-spirited, as 
careful of the interests of the town as of their own, 
— the county politicians and the village statesmen. 
Individual in type, the outcome of New England 
conditions, of an antique mould, the last of the race, 
lingering among us from the stage-coach period, are 
now fast disappearing. They will soon be extinct, 
and the world so much the poorer ; for, to men of 
that peculiar stamp, the railroad was as fatal as was 
civilization to those denizens of the forest, their long- 
time predecessors. As for us who have succeeded 
them, — 

*' ground in yonder social mill. 
We rub each other's angles down. 
And merge in [one same] form and gloss. 
The picturesque of man and man." 

I have referred to the dedication of your Town- 
Hall in 1892, and Dr. Everett's inspiring address on 
that occasion. But there is another utterance in the 
report of what occurred that day which to my mind 
strikes a note of deeper significance. One to the man- 
ner born, — oppressed, it would appear, by a certain 
sense of solemnity very proper to the day, — being 
called upon, thus then expressed himself: "This town 
has, in a manner, reached a turning of the ways. 
Changes have taken place within it during the past 

90 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

few years greater than for a long period in its previous 
history. A new Library, the removal of the old 
Church and Town-Hall, and the erection of new and 
more elegant buildings in the place of each, have much 
altered the appearance of the middle of the town 
as I have always known it. Many a venerable form 
familiar to this spot has gone down, and out of sight. 
As I view these buildings, as I look over this audi- 
ence, consisting as it does largely of Lincoln people, 
I see not the Lincoln of my boyhood ; instead, the 
old buildings gone, almost all of the old faces gone, 
and their loved and honored names one by one let- 
tered on slabs of stone down in the valley and on the 
hillside. Instead of the old buildings and the old 
faces, modern structures and an unfamiliar street." 
Coming from the source it did, there was in this 
something suggestive, not to say pathetic. Born in 
Lincoln of the old Lincoln stock, he who uttered 
those words had passed here his boyhood, had gone 
to the school, had watched the town-meeting and 
hearkened to the village debates, had sat under the 
ministrations of the Richardson pastorate. Having 
made his home elsewhere, he had come back to Lin- 
coln to take part in the ceremonies of the occasion. 
A distant echo of Rip Van Winkle pervaded what 
he said, — a suggestion of bewilderment, an under- 
tone of reminiscence and sadness. It was, moreover, 
as he said. The change he referred to had indeed 
taken place ; it was deep-reaching and wide : more- 
over, in outward expression at least, it was sudden 
and recent ; — the modern church edifice, — no 

91 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

longer a meeting-house, — the town-hall, and the 
new library building, all grouped together on the 
familiar cross-roads, emphasized the existence of 
another and different community. Old Lincoln had 
passed forever away ! 

The fact was there. Yet I have sought in vain for 
any mention of that change, or reference to its cause, 
in the historical sketches of the town, — whether 
that contributed by Mr. Wheeler, or in the occasional 
utterances of Senator Hoar, or of Dr. Everett, or 
in the Manual prepared by Mr. Richardson, or in 
the discourses of Mr. Bradley and Mr. Porter. The 
change, and the cause of it, however, when once 
considered, both are and were obvious enough, — 
apparent indeed to all men ; so apparent, so very 
obvious and commonplace, and so gradual, that, per- 
haps, they were not thought worthy of notice. 

The Fitchburg railroad, as it was called, — the 
outcome of the energy of Colonel Alvah Crocker, 
that typical New Englander, active in body and 
in mind, untiring in movement, and voluble in 
speech, " A Steam-Engine in Breeches," as he was 
sometimes not over respectfully denominated, — the 
Fitchburg railroad was formally opened for traffic to 
Waltham, December 20, 1843. Fourteen months 
later, March 5, 1845, — ^^^ ^^Y ^^t^^ the inaugura- 
tion at Washington of President James K. Polk, — 
the first locomotive, with Alvah Crocker on it, ran 
into Fitchburg. On the 17th of the previous June 
— Bunker Hill day — the road as far as Concord 
had been put in operation ; and Lincoln, conse- 

92 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

quently, since that day, had been In railroad com- 
munication with Boston. The 17th of June, 1844, 
marks the single great epoch in the modern history 
of the town. The great change then began, — a 
change slow in movement, and for years not out- 
wardly perceptible ; but, so far as Lincoln was con- 
cerned, far reaching and all involving; a change re- 
plete with interest for the philosopher, the historian 
and the economist. This, indeed, and the building 
of the original meeting-house, are the only two really 
parting-of-the-way events in the Lincoln record. 

Much, first and last, has been written and said 
of King Philip's War, of Queen Anne's War, and of 
the old French War ; of the fall of Quebec, of the 
War of Independence, and of the incidents of the 1 9th 
of April along the old Lexington and Concord 
road. The War of Secession, and Lincoln's contri- 
butions to it in men and in money, have also not 
been forgotten. And yet, if only reflected on, it will 
be seen that not one of those really great historical 
landmarks even perceptibly affected the conditions 
of this place, or the mode of life of its people. 
These were exactly the same after those epochal 
events, one and all, as before. Take, for instance, 
the War of Independence, or, for that matter, the 
War of Secession, — the ride of Paul Revere, or the 
firing on Sumter ; — great events, dramatic, and of 
far-reaching political moment, — but how did they 
affect Lincoln? After them, as before, the people 
here year by year, season in and season out, pursued 
the even tenor of their ways, — a path monotonous 

93 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

from cradle to grave. I have herein sought to pic- 
ture it as it dragged along through school and field, 
forest and kitchen, — the plow, the axe, the wash- 
tub and the oven ; — the Sabbath ever the only 
break in life, the meeting-house its single centre. 
Those people were born, married, brought forth, 
and died ; and one generation resembled another. 
Their entire biographies may be read on their 
gravestones. How did Quebec, or Bunker Hill, or 
Gettysburg, affect them ? The generation which 
followed the War of Independence differed in no 
respect from that which took part in Queen Anne's 
War, or that which bore the brunt of Philip's Indian 
fighting. With them there was, it is true, a gradual 
increase in worldly possessions ; a bettering of ma- 
terial conditions : but it was so very gradual as. to 
be from year to year imperceptible ; between gen- 
erations, scarcely noticeable. The schools may have 
improved, though, before the Stearns pastorate, it 
would be difficult to point out exactly in what re- 
spect. There was an increase in the number of 
thoroughfares, as in the volume of traffic upon them : 
but in essentials those thoroughfares were the same, 
and, prior to 1870, it may safely be said that, judged 
by the standard this generation has attained unto, 
the people of Lincoln did not know what a good 
road was. The highway tax was a levy paid in kind. 
Yearly, on town-meeting day, prices were fixed for 
labor, or the use of teams;' and, at the rates thus 

' " Voted and granted the sum of sixty pounds to be laid out as 
usual in the repairs of highways and bridges in current year j and 

94 



77/1? Nelson House 
(p. 219) 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

established, those liable discharged their dues. Tra- 
ditions yet survive of the way in which the Rev. 
Charles Stearns, D. D., — that, in person, Falstaffian 
divine, — with hoe and shovel, and by the sweat of 
his brow, worked out his tax in company with those 
composing his flock. He too, it is profanely said, 
then larded the lean earth as he walked along. 

The roads corresponded with the methods in use 
for their maintenance. Deep in mud in the spring, 
deep in dust in the summer, the so-called public 
ways were deep in snow in winter. In the autumn 
only were they passable. All this the War of In- 
dependence did not better, — did not in any way 
change. Schools and roads and church observances, 
— the food, the dress, the domestic life, or the 
means of livelihood of that people, — continued to 
be as immemorially they had been. And so the 
faint echoes of distant battles died gently away with- 
out introducing into Lincoln a book or a paper, 
much less an industry or a new means of livelihood, 
or a breath of stronger and more varied life, or any 
increase of intercourse with the outer world. Not 
until 1825 did the town even boast a post-ofiice ; ' 
and the early history of that office throws a queer 
gleam of light on Lincoln at, so to speak, the half- 
three shillings per day to be allowed to each man that doth a sufficient 
day's work, and the same sum for a sufficient team till the 10th of 
September — and but is 6d per day from the said loth of September 
to the end of the year." Records, March 2, 1795. 

' The South Lincoln post-office was not established until 1872, 
seven years after the close of the Civil War. That struggle does not 
seem to have influenced Lincoln in any way. 

95 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

way house between its starting-point and the point 
now reached. The railroad was only twenty years in 
the future, yet the place had not got going. The 
office was established, and one David S. Jones made 
postmaster, January 24, 1825. Its total receipts for 
the first five months of its existence were ^14.35. 
Postmaster Jones then seems to have become wearied 
and discouraged, or delinquent, for no returns appear 
during the year ensuing. At last, in July, 1827, the 
office showed signs of renewed life. Luke Gates 
assumed charge of it ; and, during the ensuing full 
fiscal year, its receipts amounted to no less a sum 
than I47.62, an average of $3.97 a month. Even 
after the railroad was opened, the single daily mail 
was for years carried over the road to and from the 
station by a man on foot, — nor was he thereby 
over-burdened ! Such was Lincoln seventy-five years 
after its incorporation, and when the Declaration of 
Independence had been celebrated for a half century. 
That instrument, and the stirring events which 
marked its proclamation, had not produced any dis- 
cernible effect on the Massachusetts hill community. 
But at last the railroad ; that changed all ! And 
now Lincoln's history once more becomes interest- 
ing, — an economical study, indeed, of small, per- 
haps, but profound, significance ; for it illustrates to 
a remarkable degree the truth of the teachings of 
Adam Smith, — his faith in the benefits sure to fol- 
low the removal of every restriction on trade. Events, 
however, even in these latter days, — those succeed- 
ing the Declaration, — move slowly. Smith's book 

96 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

first saw the light in 1776, — sixty-eight years before 
the railroad from Boston to Fitchburg was opened 
through Lincoln. If, when that road was opened, 
the veil could have been lifted, and the economical 
significance of the event revealed, it would have 
called for a very robust faith in the fundamental 
truth of the Scotch professor's new-fangled theories 
to have foreseen for Lincoln anything but a future 
of ruin and desolation, — abandoned farms and 
rotting roof-trees. What did the railroad signify? 
— not perhaps at once, but in the slow progress and 
final result of an inevitable development, — a devel- 
opment those who looked on at the opening were to 
live to witness and to study ; for the man now of three- 
score and ten was already then in his eleventh year. 
That opening meant for Lincoln the complete cast- 
ing down of her trade barriers. Those dwelling in 
Lincoln were thereafter to be subjected, as respects 
every source of livelihood, to an unrestrained com- 
petition from each quarter of the compass — the 
boundless and fertile West, the frost-covered North, 
the genial South, and even from the barren sea. 
And there was not one single article which Lin- 
coln then produced which could not be produced 
elsewhere under more favorable conditions. Those 
articles — staples of life — were henceforth to be 
transported by rail and " dumped," to use the word 
now in vogue, not only on the markets open to Lin- 
coln, but on Lincoln itself. Take, for instance, 
Lincoln's traditional products, — those enumerated 
in the Lawrence settlement of 1748, — cord-wood, 

97 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Indian corn, rye, pork and beef. How could Lin- 
coln, hauling its wood over country roads, hope to 
compete in Boston market with wood brought by 
the train-load from New Hampshire and Maine ? 
How much less could it compete with coal from 
Pennsylvania ? Every child here knows that to-day 
coal has driven wood as fuel out of every house in 
Lincoln. A wood fire is a luxury. And Indian corn, 
and rye.^* How could Lincoln, on its rugged hill- 
sides and with its thin upland soil, compete with the 
rich virgin plains of Illinois, where cereals of fabu- 
lous size and productiveness grew of themselves, — 
where fertilizers were wasted ? And so with cattle 
and swine. In the States west of the Lakes, they 
were raised in herds and droves, living on the plenty 
of the land ; here they must be nurtured, singly and 
toilfully, sheltered and fed, and ceaselessly cared for. 
Nor was it any better with the choicer fruits of 
the earth, — the apple, the peach, the cherry and the 
strawberry. If the valley of the Mohawk, the up- 
lands of Ohio, and the plains of Indiana and Illi- 
nois made wheat instead of meal the staff of life, so 
New Jersey and Delaware rushed into the produc- 
tion of peaches and berries under conditions which 
made Lincoln's competition seemingly hopeless, 
flooding every accessible market. At the same time 
apples, potatoes and carrots, produced in the great 
belt reaching from Maine to Michigan, poured in by 
the train-load. It was, too, a case of absolute free- 
trade. There was no tariff barrier anywhere. The 
cost of transportation alone had to be taken into 

98 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

account; — the farm wagon from Lincoln ran over 
the highway against the freight train from the Hud- 
son over the railroad. Lincoln had no protection ! 

Fortunately, the situation was not realized, and the 
change came gradually. As it developed, the unex- 
pected occurred, — it usually does occur! In other 
words, the abandoned farms, the vacant homesteads, 
the falling roof-trees, did not materialize. On the 
contrary, and in due time, there resulted, as I have 
said, a most interesting illustration of the truth of 
Smith's teachings. An alert, enterprising and ener- 
getic community proved equal to the emergency ; 
and Lincoln, quietly, insensibly almost, adjusting it- 
self to the gradual change of conditions, instead of 
lapsing into everlasting ruin, grew yearly more pros- 
perous, more populous, more intelligent and more 
moral. Were statistics attainable, and did time and 
space permit, it would be curious to follow this change 
through its intricate channels. Unlike many other 
towns, Lincoln could not diversify its occupations. 
Nature debarred it from so doing. It was a farming 
town, and, moreover, a hill town ; as such it had 
no source of power, nor any natural advantage. It 
could not, like Lowell, become a mill-centre ; nor a 
boot and shoe factory, like Brockton ; it could not 
go into the manufacture of whips, like Topsfield, nor 
even of base-balls, like Natick. From the conditions 
of its origin, it was, and had to remain, exclusively 
agricultural. As such, apparently, it was doomed. 
How did it escape its doom ? — for, unquestionably, 
the doom was escaped. It escaped simply by force of 

99 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

intelligence, and because it had to. In the first place, 
under the so-called " dumping " process, its markets 
developed an unexpected sustaining power. They 
even seemed to like it, and thrive under it. Contrary 
to all prognostications of evil and ruin, a plentiful 
supply of all the goods of the earth, at prices ruin- 
ously low for the home producers thereof, had a most 
stimulating effect, and centres of industry — each a 
new market in itself — began to develop with ever 
increasing rapidity. With wealth and population 
arose new and undreamed-of demands ; the luxury 
of yesterday became the necessity of to-day. Take 
a few homely examples, articles known as garden- 
truck, — asparagus, lettuce and cucumbers ; before 
the railroad, these were raised in Lincoln only for 
home use, and the two latter had, as the first has still, 
their season. In that season they were cheap and 
plentiful ; out of that season, money could not buy 
them. How is it now? Lincoln has simply gone 
into their manufacture, regardless of season ; they are 
made artificially, under glass. Plentiful throughout 
the year, the demand for them is incessant ; and they 
cost hardly more in December than in June. The 
asparagus and strawberry beds have displaced the field 
of Indian corn, just as wheaten bread has driven out 
the loaf of meal and rye. And so to-day, by a nat- 
ural process, Lincoln, without protection, with no ex- 
ternal aid or tariff barrier, has quietly adjusted itself 
to changed conditions ; and, even as an agricultural 
town in a community of absolutely unrestricted free- 
trade in all agricultural products, is more prosperous 

100 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

than ever before. Even wood, — cord-wood, — 
the traditional product of the axe and wood lot, 
— the competition of Maine and New Hampshire 
beyond the State, and of Berkshire and Franklin 
within, has not destroyed its value ; nor has coal dis- 
placed it as fuel. Though the range and the stove 
have supplanted the open fireplace, the product of the 
forest still reigns supreme as the fuel of wealth ; and, 
at the beginning of the twentieth century, more cord- 
wood goes annually out of Lincoln to seek a market 
in Waltham, Watertown and Boston than went out at 
the end of the eighteenth century. Truly, it would 
have made glad the heart of Adam Smith could 
he have studied this illustration of the truth of the 
strange doctrine he taught ! As Hamlet long ago 
observed in quite another connection, — "This was 
sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof." 

Thus Lincoln passed, and successfully as slowly 
passed, through its ordeal of change, — its great re- 
volution. Beginning with June 17, 1844, the out- 
come of the ordeal and result of the change were 
fitly commemorated in the utterance — instinctive 
and somewhat bewildered — I have just quoted from 
the lips of one of its sons on the 26th of May, 1892. 
More than forty-eight years had elapsed since the 
locomotive had forced its way by the banks of Wal- 
den, — over one third of Lincoln's whole municipal 
life! 

The story of the past is told. It remains to frame 
the message to the future. To be complete, the in- 
scription on the milestone must speak of us, and of 

lOI 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

the spot on which the column has to-day halted, as 
well as of the past and of the road thus far traversed. 
How about the Lincoln that now is ? And, whatever 
the future may have in store, I am fain to say that, 
in my own belief, Lincoln in all its century and a 
half of history has not seen better days. The post- 
office, the railroad, the library, the daily newspaper, 
and the improved school have all done their work ; 
and the result bears witness for itself. Nowhere — 
yes ! absolutely nowhere — do I see signs of deteri- 
oration. As compared with a century ago, — much 
more as compared with the anniversary we celebrate, 
— Lincoln is more populous, more intelligent, 
wealthier, more temperate and more moral. While 
of those classed as rich there may within its limits be 
a larger number, within those limits there are fewer 
really poor. With us, the needy are housed ; the 
sick are cared for ; the insane receive treatment. The 
man in Lincoln of all its people least well-to-do 
when injured to-day has bestowed on his case, with- 
out cost to him, a science and skill which, a century 
ago, wealth could not command. Again, the tippling- 
room has been closed. In his historical discourse 
of six years ago, Mr. Bradley threw a queer gleam of 
light on what may well enough be referred to as the 
drinking usages in vogue a century and a quarter 
since. When the Rev. William Lawrence died, his 
congregation made proper provision for his obsequies. 
That provision included the following items : one 
barrel of cider, five quarts malt and some hops, one 
gallon wine, one gallon rum, seven pounds of sugar, 

102 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

and one half pound of tea. Nineteen months later, 
the Rev. Charles Stearns was installed as successor to 
Mr. Lawrence. Like provision was then also made 
for this more propitious event. In that provision 
were included nine gallons of wine ; five of rum ; tea, 
coffee and chocolate one pound each. One pound of 
tea to fourteen gallons of rum and wine is irresistibly 
suggestive of the proportions between FalstafF's sack 
and bread. In 1778, during the death agony of the 
continental currency, a joint meeting was held of 
committees representing the several towns of Con- 
cord, Billerica, Lexington, Weston, Stow, Bedford, 
Acton and Lincoln, and they attempted the impos- 
sible feat of establishing prices at which all com- 
modities in general use should be sold. Among 
the prices thus established were the following to 
govern inn-holders: Mug of West India phlip, 15 
shillings ; ditto, New England, 12 shillings ; Toddy, 
in proportion. Bowl of Punch, not set. And all 
this is so set down in Lincoln's Book of Records ! 
But when the consumption of rum in those days is 
under discussion, it is not a question of temperance. 
The most profitable trade of all country stores was 
in spirits, and all — ministers, doctors, farmers and 
squires — made use of it in about the same degree. 
They habitually ate salted meat ; and habitually 
quenched the resulting thirst with rum.' In the 

' See the curious facts and statistics given on this subject by Albert 
E. Wood in his paper published by the Concord Antiquarian Society, 
entitled " How our Great Grandfathers Lived." Those mentioned 
therein, Mr. Wood, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Wheeler, etc., were as much 
Lincoln as Concord men. 

103 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

stage-coach days there was a house of call at every 
great road crossing ; and the remains of three old 
taverns, each of which once ran its open bar, are still 
to be seen on the Lancaster road, on the old turn- 
pike, and in the centre of the town. By way of 
contrast, the Lincoln of to-day, in town-meeting 
assembled now seven weeks ago, without a single 
dissenting voice, directed its clerk to cast one ballot 
for the order prohibiting during the year all sales of 
spirits within Lincoln limits ! 

Other times ; other men ; other customs ! Are 
we, indeed, as some maintain, degenerate ? As did 
those of the earlier period when, on the yth of 
November, 178 1, the Rev. Charles Stearns was 
installed as minister of the town, and pastor of the 
church which gathered in the meeting-house which 
preceded this edifice, we to-day are observing an 
occasion of interest. A century and twenty-two years 
have since elapsed. Presently, after the formal cere- 
monies of the day, we also, as did they, will sit down 
at the tables, and partake of the flesh-pots. Now 
imagine, were such an imagination possible, coun- 
tenanced by my esteemed friend, Mr. Moorfield 
Storey, as presiding officer of the day, a proportion- 
ate recurrence to the menu, or bill of fare, of No- 
vember 7, 178 1. We would have to dispose of at 
least a couple of barrels of cider, approximately a 
hogshead of wine, a barrel more or less of rum, 
and, possibly, as much as one pound of tea. More 
accustomed than we to heady beverages, they had no 
organ in those days ; only a bass viol. But, as we 

104 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

dwell in imagination on the possibility I have sug- 
gested, we can picture Mr. Storey, at the close of 
the coming entertainment, leading off with an organ 
accompaniment in that, to us, familiar air which re- 
lates to what will occur in the " old town to-night," 
and to the carmine in which it will appear clad when 
to-morrow's sun rises. But, as I have already said, 
— other times! — other customs! Either we, as 
respects potations, are degenerate, or there were 
giants in those days. 

To return to our theme. 

In other respects, also, the character of the town 
has changed, — not revolutionized, it has changed 
significantly. No longer purely agricultural, it has 
become more and more a residence and, so to speak, 
bedroom community: — that is, while fifty years 
ago no one ' lived here and yet pursued his daily 
vocation — earned his living — elsewhere, many do 
so now; and the number is steadily increasing. The 
town-meeting, that great feature of Massachusetts 
life, is no longer a gathering of yeomen, — children 
of the soil and exacting their livelihood from it. But 
it is still the genuine town-meeting, — the assembly 
of a little commonwealth, in which all are equal, all 
freemen, all Americans. 

And here let me for a moment speak of myself, 
and my own experience and impressions ; not im- 

' I am informed that, forty years ago, a single Lincoln resident, and 
one only, Edward Stearns, earned his living in Boston, making daily 
trips each way between home and place of occupation. Some fifty do 
so now. 

105 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

possibly they may have an interest — the interest of 
novelty and freshness — even to those here dwell- 
ing three generations hence. Very distinctly do I 
remember my own first town-meeting in Lincoln, 
its surprise and delight. It was ten years ago, — 
the 5th of March, 1894. I had then been less than 
four months a resident ; and, a year before, had never 
but once set foot in Lincoln. In 1879, I think it 
was, I came here one day officially, as member of 
the Board of Railroad Commissioners, to investi- 
gate the circumstances of a death at the grade-cross- 
ing next east of the station. With that single ex- 
ception, I had never been in Lincoln, except on a 
train in movement. At last, on an almost fairy-like 
day in May, — a day most fortunate for me, — I 
was on the spur of the moment induced to come 
out, and look at a place bordering on Fairhaven-bay, 
then for sale. I came. It was the 20th of May, 
and Thoreau's " Pleasant Meadows," Fairhaven-bay, 
and the stretching valley of the Sudbury with the 
Maynard hills beyond, lay basking in the fresh 
spring sunlight, and their germinal perfection. I saw 
what I wanted made ready to my hand ; and, moved 
by a reckless impulse, I made myself its master 
on the spot. I have since come to regard my so 
doing as an inspiration ; as such, thanking God for 
it! Just six months after I here made my home. 
Presently town-meeting day came round. At town- 
meetings, I was no novice. I had, in fact, attended 
them for 250 years; at first in Braintree, — though 
there in the persons of my ancestors, — but, more 

106 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

recently, in Quincy myself. In them also I had 
habitually taken an active part. A day of change 
came, — a change I greatly deplored; it was, how- 
ever, inevitable, and, as such, in it I silently ac- 
quiesced. Quincy outgrew town government. A 
large alien population by degrees came in, and secret 
organizations made themselves felt, perverting the 
old town-meeting to factional ends. I saw the system 
break down ; and its break-down grieved me. Then 
Quincy became a city, — a suburban municipality. 
And at once almost I woke to a consciousness of 
the fact that the home of my youth and my earlier 
manhood was gone, — gone, never to return ! Its 
whole individuality seemed departed. It was the 
same place outwardly in all essential respects; but 
I was a stranger in it. Its traditions no longer held ; 
spiritually it was defunct. It might be a " live " city 
to others ; to me it was a dead town. I walked its 
streets a ghost, — superfluous, lagged. Where all 
had once been neighbors and familiar, I now knew 
few ; and fewer still seemed to know me. So, cut- 
ting the knot, though with a sharp pang, I betook 
myself elsewhere. And now town-meeting day had 
come in the place of my new abode. 

As I need not say, since the period of De Tocque- 
ville, — that is, for sixty years, — the New England 
town-meeting has, as a political institution, been 
world renowned ; and, familiar as I myself was with 
it and its methods, I remember well my silent sur- 
prise when one day the late John Fiske, an authority 
on New England history, informed me, in an inci- 

107 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

dental sort of way, that he had never been present at 
one. I could hardly have been more surprised had 
some eminent practising surgeon told me that he 
had never witnessed a dissection. Now it so hap- 
pened that in March, 1894, an English friend of 
mine was here, and he had expressed a wish to see a 
genuine New England town-meeting ; so I told him 
that, would he come to Lincoln, I thought I could 
gratify him. I had never been to one there, but I 
imagined I knew what it would be like. He gladly 
accepted my invitation, and together we went, — 
both strangers. Very vividly do I recall his curiosity, 
amusement and delight. For myself, I felt at home 
at once. I was back among my native surroundings. 
A new-comer, I naturally took no part; but the 
plain, orderly, common-sense procedure, the rough, 
manly equality, the give-and-take of town-meeting, 
were all there, and there in perfection. It was not the 
crowded hall and swaying, shouting mass to which 
I had of late years grown accustomed at Quincy ; it 
was the genuine village gathering of the earlier, and, 
in that respect, the infinitely better time. I recog- 
nized instinctively every familiar character, though 
not one face or name did I know ; — theref was the 
moderator, sufficiently skilled in parliamentary law 
and the conduct of business ; and, by him, the tra- 
ditional town-clerk. On the front bench was the 
chairman of the selectmen ; and the shrewd, humor- 
ous squire at his side. The leader of the opposition 
was not far to seek ; nor the village demagogue ; 
nor the town-meeting orator ; nor the town-meeting 

108 



The Flint House 

(p. 222) 



^, 



-^ k' 




A MILESTONE PLANTED 

bore. The prober into the details and mysteries of 
the town-book was also in evidence. I knew them 
all ; I felt myself one of them. Not so my English 
friend. To him it was novel, and yet not altogether 
strange. It was the Commons House of Parliament 
in little ; and, watching it with the deepest interest, he 
later in discussion referred to Mr. Samuel Hartwell, 
then chairman of the selectmen, as the "Chancellor 
of the Exchequer," and to the list of appropriations 
as the " Budget ; " while Mr. Wheeler became the 
" Speaker," and the town-clerk remained his wonder 
and admiration. It was, I am fain to say, a typical 
town-meeting; one I was glad to have witnessed by 
a foreigner of intelligence. It showed our New 
England institutions in their home, and at work. 

It has been so since. As it stands to-day, I bear 
witness that Lincoln town government represents 
that form of government in a shape approaching per- 
fection. Made up almost exclusively of Americans, 
traditionally accustomed to the forms, not so large as 
to be unwieldy and yet large enough to have an ele- 
mentof uncertainty as to outcome in it, the voting roll 
of the entire town can be called in ten minutes, and 
the annual warrant is disposed of at a single session. 

What more remains to be said ? What further 
message can be sent down for delivery to a future 
generation, as it plants yet another milestone ? I 
think of little. The record of these days, unlike 
those we are here to commemorate, is full, and he 
who runs may read. It will tell of a town no longer 
remote ; and one to which the fact that it is set upon 

109 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

a hill is a commendation, not a drawback. The nat- 
ural beauties of Lincoln are plain to see, whether you 
float along the Sudbury, or, from the summit of the 
hill, view the broad stretch of rolling and wooded 
country off to Wachusett and the hills of New 
Hampshire, or walk or drive through its forest-lined 
roads. The population is not dense, and Nature still 
holds its own. As a community it is neither large 
nor wealthy. The statistics tell us that we number 
but one inhabitant to some seven and two thirds ' 
acres, and our worldly possessions are estimated at 
S2000 to each inhabitant. The map tells the story 
of our roads ; the succession of town-books is the 
record of our finances, our schools and our library. 
As a community we are not torn by dissensions ; 
though, in this respect, it was not always so. Indeed, 
I am told that, from a time which memory and tra- 
dition fail to recall, the Lincoln of former days was 
rent in twain, — divided as a house about to fall. 
But it did not fall; on the contrary it seemed to 
thrive through contention. Old residents, — men 
whose recollections run far back of this railroad 
epoch, assure me that the North and South feud 
was an inheritance from other generations, and a con- 
dition of affairs which long ago ceased to exist. To 
a certain extent it was Homeric, for it flavored of 
the muster-fields and the New England Olympic 
games. It was a rivalry of runners and wrestlers — of 
those throwing the hammer, and those shooting at the 

I Inhabitants, 1127 ; acres, 8500. See Wheeler, in Drake's M;W- 
dlesex, vol. i, p. 34. 

» IIO 



A MILESTONE PLANTED 

butts. There were giants then ; and the giants of the 
South, it is asserted, contended, not unsuccessfully, 
with those of the North. Hence jealousies and heart- 
burnings ; and these became chronic, and hereditary. 
Gradually, the issues changed ; but the feud re- 
mained. What it was all about, no one seemed to 
know; and, curiously enough, no one now refers to it 
except in a humorous way. But, as between North 
and South, this town was, prior to 1890, the nation 
in miniature. The railroad was Lincoln's Mason- 
and-Dixon's line. So bitter, I am assured, was the 
feeling, that it was sufficient for one section to desire 
anything to have the other unalterably opposed to 
it ; and when, moreover, in town-meeting the North 
and Centre carried an issue over the South, the 
meeting-house bell was rung in noisy triumph. It 
was a very parlous period ; but, like most such 
periods, it wore itself gradually away. I have, more- 
over, been told that one distinctly alleviating influ- 
ence — again Homeric — was the appearance at 
school from the South of the daughter, passing fair, 
of one of the oldest and most distinctive families 
in that section. This maiden, — quite a Lincoln 
Briseis, — found favor in the eyes of the young men 
of the Centre and North, and they by degrees came to 
think that conditions could not be altogether bad or 
hopeless among a people of whom this was the con- 
summate flower. And so, gentler sentiments assum- 
ing swav, they at last began to ask the why and the 
wherefore of it all. When my time began it was 
over ; but I am assured that, while it lasted, — and 

III 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

it lasted long, — it was a great and classic feud. The 
opportunity was not lacking ; the theme was there ; 
the village Homer only failed us. 

But now there is peace and good-will in town- 
meetings, where we still adhere to the institutions of 
our fathers. While liberal in expenditure, the town 
is not extravagant ; nor, in these days of so-called 
" graft," does any breath of calumny attach to those 
by whom our public affairs are administered. That 
with us more than with others the limit of improve- 
ment has been reached, we do not believe ; mean- 
while, as it addresses itself with confidence to the 
future, a reasonable contentment dwells within Lin- 
coln's borders. 

And so ends the anniversary. The milestone is 
planted ; the record is inscribed upon it. We have 
looked back over the road we have travelled ; we 
have surveyed the land in which we dwell ; the holi- 
day approaches its close. With to-morrow's sun we 
will gather together, old and young, and, once more 
shouldering our burdens, resume the line of march. 
The road of the future will doubtless, as did that of 
the past, lead over hill as well as through dale ; but, 
when the next resting-place is reached, let us set out 
in the hope that our descendants may say it has been 
not less well with them than it was with us and with 
our fathers. It is a goodly land ; and may they in 
their day feel blest in its possession, no less than do 
we in ours. 



112 



APPENDIX A 

(Page 27) 

Fifty years ago, at the close of the first century of Lin- 
coln's incorporated life, no study whatever had been made 
of the geology of Middlesex County. Since then, and espe- 
cially of recent years, it has been gone over repeatedly with 
care, and the marks of the student's hammer are everywhere 
to be found. Many data have been collected, and certain 
conclusions reached. These have interest in themselves ; 
but, not improbably, their chief value hereafter will be found 
as a basis of comparison ; for hitherto the geologists have 
found recurring occasion to revise the conclusions thereto- 
fore confidently reached. The ice age, for instance, was 
first fixed at an antiquity measured in years by the hundreds 
of thousands ; since gradually contracted to the more rea- 
sonable period given in the text. So also as respects varia- 
tions of the polar axis. That the theories, beliefs and con- 
clusions now held will undergo similar, though continually 
diminishing, modification, scarcely admits of doubt. The 
rocks and deposits of Lincoln afford an interesting field of 
study. The following memorandum of results concerning 
it, and them, up to this time reached, has been prepared by 
Mr. J. W. Goldthwait of the Harvard University Geolo- 
gical Department. In its field it, also, is of the milestone 
character. 

The geology of an area like Lincoln involves the study 
of two rather different kinds of things, — (<?) the bed rock, or 
solid foundation, of the region, and {I?) the surface features ; 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

namely, the shapes given to the hills and valleys by erosion 
of rain and rivers and by the old North American ice sheet, 
and the deposits of rock waste, chiefly of glacial origin, 
which have been spread over the bed rock surface so as 
generally to conceal it. In other words, geology includes not 
only the study of rocks but the study of everything which 
is usually called the " ground." Its object is to understand 
the origin of these things, — how they were produced, and 
what they really mean. In this paper, then, a certain order 
will be followed ; the features of geological interest will be 
considered roughly in order of their age, the bed rock his- 
tory first, then the history of the development of the topo- 
graphy, and last of all the eff^ects of the great ice sheet. 

Bed Rock Geology 

The rock mass, of which we see occasional outcropping 
ledges about the town, is composed of 

(a) Ancient seashore sediments, barely recognizable as 
such, because they have been so completely transformed 
or " metamorphosed " by compres'sion, squeezing, and the 
action of subterranean heat. 

(l>) Other metamorphic rocks, including some which 
probably broke their way up into these old sediments in a 
molten state some time before the great metamorphism took 
place, for they share it ; and some which may represent the 
old original sea floor on which the sediments were laid down. 

(c) Rocks, once molten or " igneous," which found their 
way into the others as subterranean lavas, but after the 
rocks of the first two groups had been metamorphosed. 

It may be well to take these up in order, to see some- 
thing of their history. 

The first two groups have already been spoken of as 
" metamorphic " rocks. Under this head come all rocks 

114 



APPENDIX 

which have undergone great transformation in their physi- 
cal and mineralogical make-up, by reason of that intense 
heat and pressure which seems to be continually exerted 
on the earth's crust while the earth cools and shrinks. It is 
believed to be chiefly this constant shrinkage that gives rise 
to great wrinklings of the earth's crust, determining the 
location of mountain ranges. Wherever wrinkling of this 
sort has gone on, the rocks show the effects of it to a greater 
or less extent. One result is the upturning and folding of 
the rocks ; but when the process is long continued the rocks 
suffer also great changes of structure, — their component 
crystals or grains are rearranged, flattened out and fused, 
and new minerals may be born. A rock thus transformed, 
or metamorphosed, often has a distinct banding or " folia- 
tion " in a direction perpendicular to that of compression. 
Gneisses and schists are two great classes of foliated rocks, 
— the former being massive and firm, and the latter split- 
ting easily along the foliation. Whether a certain gneiss, 
or a certain schist, was originally a sedimentary deposit or a 
molten rock mass is often very hard to tell. Other meta- 
morphic rocks, however, such as quartzite and marble, which 
need not have foliation, are clearly derived from stratified 
or sedimentary deposits. In Lincoln several sorts of meta- 
morphic rocks appear at the surface ; but only one or two 
need be mentioned. 

Quartzite occurs in several parts of the township, but 
the main belt is in the southeastern part, along the back of 
Mount Tabor. The area in which quartzite ledges occur is 
from a quarter to a half mile wide, and can be traced in 
a southwest direction as far as Reeves' Hill in Wayland. 
Quartzite is a hard firm rock, always light colored — bluish 
or pinkish — and sugary in texture. It was probably once 
a sandstone, or rock formed from thick beds of sand hard- 
ened by pressure of overlaying deposits ; but by metamor- 

"5 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

phism the original sand grains have been fused, and partly 
turned into minute quartz crystals. The quartzite is at 
least six hundred feet thick. 

Half a mile southwest of Sandy Pond is a ledge of mar- 
ble, a rock which is of local interest more from its rarity 
than anything else. It is a nearly white rock, crystallized 
with a fine grain. Marble of this sort is re-crystallized 
limestone, originally a calcareous shell or slime deposit col- 
lected on the sea floor, and later consolidated by the weight 
of beds laid down on top of it. Both heat and the action of 
percolating waters bring about the crystallization of the 
mass first into limestone and, later, into thoroughly crys- 
tallized marble. On account of its organic origin marble 
might be expected to contain fossils ; but often the meta- 
morphism has entirely obliterated them, as seems to be the 
case with the Lincoln rock. At several places in this local- 
ity the rock has been quarried, and where it is thus freshly 
exposed one can see plainly the way the original beds have 
been folded. The thickness of the formation is about two 
hundred feet. 

What may once have been a subterranean lava, forced 
into the sediments, is a broad belt of hornblende-schist 
almost a mile wide, running in a northeast-southwest direc- 
tion through Sandy Pond. This is a rock of dark gray color 
and variable texture, containing a good deal of the black 
mineral called hornblende, as well as mica and the two 
common light-colored minerals, quartz and feldspar. The 
mass of rock itself, and the foliated structure of it, run from 
northeast to southwest, showing that the squeezing took 
place in a direction northwest-southeast. This trend of foli- 
ation of the rocks, indeed, occurs clear across Massachu- 
setts, indicating that the wrinkling of the rocks accompanied 
the formation of the Appalachian mountain system, or at 
least of a part of it. 

ii6 



APPENDIX 

A belt of granite stretches in a northeast-southwest di- 
rection along the northwest border of the township, from 
the head of Meade Brook to the vicinity of Walden Pond. 
Since granite is composed of different minerals crystallized 
out in much the same manner that any substance like 
molten sugar crystallizes on cooling, it is believed that the 
rock mass was once hot and plastic, like lava, but that it 
cooled slowly to a solid state, — so slowly that distinct 
crystals were developed. Lavas from volcanoes cool too fast 
for such a complete crystallization as this, because they are 
on the surface. Granites and other coarse-grained igneous 
rocks are thought to have been formed deep down below 
the earth's surface, and to be visible now because long- 
continued erosion has brought the surface far down through 
the original rock mass. The presence of mica in abundance 
in the Lincoln granite makes it a true granite, according 
to accepted terminology, whereas the so-called " granites " 
of Quincy and Rockport, which have no mica, are not 
true granites, but hornblende -granites. One noticeable 
feature in the Lincoln rock is the occurrence of irregular 
veins or tongues of coarse-grained quartz and feldspar rock 
called " pegmatite," which shoot through the granite in 
every direction. It is possible that this Lincoln granite is 
the oldest rock in the township, and represents the rock 
floor on which the marine sediments (since metamorphosed 
into quartzite, marble, and schist) were spread. This, 
however, is hardly more than a conjecture. 

Another northeast-southwest belt of rock, running through 
the township from Beaver Pond to the old turnpike west 
of Mount Tabor, is of hornblende-gneiss. The rock varies 
greatly in appearance, but is usually grayish or pinkish 
where weathered, with more or less foliation. In intimate 
association with it is a black rock called diabase, which oc- 
curs in bands sometimes sharply marked off from the gneiss, 

117 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

and sometimes blended with it along the contact. This 
mixture of gneiss and diabase seems to be a very firm re- 
sistant rock, for it makes the ridge of high ground northeast 
of Beaver Pond. Softer rocks on either side have been w^orn 
down to form the valleys. 

Of several other sorts of rock that are known to occur 
in Lincoln, only two need be mentioned. Both of these 
occur in straight strips, or " dikes," where fissures in the 
main rock mass were opened and filled with lava, which 
cooled there into firm rock. Diabase, or "trap " dikes, oc- 
cur sparingly in the eastern part of the town. They are 
black where freshly broken, but weather with a brownish 
surface. "Aplite" dikes occur in a hill three quarters of 
a mile southwest of Sandy Pond, south of North Street. 
These are light colored, and made up of quartz and feld- 
spar. The aplite and diabase of these dikes are the two 
youngest rocks of the region, because they fill fissures in 
the others, — that is, because they " cut " the gneisses, 
schists, etc. 

Concerning the age of the rocks, very little can be said. 
Obscure markings in the marble bear a resemblance to fos- 
sil pteropods like some found at Nahant. If these are truly 
fossils, the rocks belong to the " Lower Cambrian " pe- 
riod ; but it is very doubtful. At any rate, the gneisses, 
schists, quartzite and marble are very old, for they have 
undergone great metamorphism ; and, after that, they have 
been invaded at different times by igneous rocks of different 
sorts, including last of all the dike-rocks, diabase and aplite. 
The bed rock history, then, is a complex series of events, 
including the accumulation of thick beds of sediments under 
water, the compression and upheaval of them by mountain- 
building forces by which the rocks have been completely 
metamorphosed, and the intrusion of subterranean lavas 
into the mass both before and after the mountain-building 

ii8 



APPENDIX 

process was most active. All this probably involves many 
millions of years. 

Surface Form 

The form of the hills and valleys hereabouts has been 
determined by two great geological agencies of erosion, — 
water and ice, acting with some regard to the rock struc- 
ture into which they have deeply carved. Although the 
shape and trend of the hills of Lincoln may seem at first 
sight to show little regularity, a careful inspection will 
bring out the fact of a rather persistent northeast-southwest 
trend of hills and valleys. So far as this pattern holds good, 
it doubtless shows the control of rock structure ; for the 
northeast-southwest rock belts already spoken of are not all 
equally resistant to the destructive action of rain and rivers, 
and consequently the harder belts are left standing up as 
hills or ridges. 

Another feature about the topography, but one which 
would hardly be appreciated except when it is seen from 
the top of one of the higher hills of the town, is the rela- 
tive accordance in height of the hills. Here, in the eastern 
part of the State, it is not very striking ; for, though the hills 
rise to the same general height, they are far apart and have 
rather rounded summits. Farther west, however, in the 
Berkshires, where the hilltops cover a greater part of the 
total area, their accordance is very marked, and a view of 
the landscape shows a rather flat skyline. A much more 
perfect case of such a flattish upland country occurs in 
Brittany, a widely accepted explanation for it being that the 
region, probably originally mountainous, was worn down 
lower and lower, by natural process of erosion by atmos- 
phere, rain and rivers, until it became nearly flat, — a 
*' peneplain," — and stood close to sea level ; that it was then 
tilted up to form a low plateau, and the rivers, with steep- 

119 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

ened slopes and renewed energy, cut down their valleys be- 
neath the plateau level. In the case of New England the 
complexly folded structure of the rocks and their extreme 
metamorphism indicate that at one time the whole region 
was mountainous. The present low-rolling topography is 
not at all appropriate to such a complex rock structure. 
Apparently the mountains were worn down to a gently roll- 
ing country, and then the peneplain was tilted up, and again 
somewhat cut into by streams. Since the upland skyline 
rises steadily towards the northwest, the uplift of the pene- 
plain must have been greatest in that part, so as to give the 
greatest slant towards the southeast. So the rather flat sky- 
line that one sees from the top of the Lincoln hills may re- 
present an old peneplain, while the valleys of to-day record 
the work of the streams since the peneplain was uplifted. 
Wachusett and other hills that rise far above the general 
upland level are considered to be residual masses, never 
worn down to the peneplain, because they are composed of 
harder rock and were situated near the headwaters of the 
streams that reduced the surface of the country. These 
abnormally high hills have been named " monadnocks," 
after the New Hampshire example. The reduction of the 
surface to the peneplain is placed by geologists in " Cre- 
taceous " time ; for all the rock waste produced by the 
wearing down of the mountains to the lowland must have 
been swept seaward, and deposited as sediment along the 
coast ; and cretaceous strata occur on Long Island, Mar- 
tha's Vineyard and elsewhere, which seem to be part of 
this waste. 

One more topographic feature should be mentioned, 
before considering the work of the ice sheet on Lincoln 
topography. It is the long steep rock escarpment that runs 
along the eastern boundary of the township, from Mount 
Tabor southward as far as Kendall Green. The unusual 

120 



APPENDIX 

straightness of this escarpment and its steepness suggest 
that it is a somewhat worn " fault-scarp," or cliff produced 
by the upheaval of the whole rock mass on one side of a 
deep fracture, — the fracture in this case running some- 
where along the base of the cliff, and the uplifted block 
being on the western side of it. The suggestion of faulting 
is strengthened by the fact that near the supposed fracture or 
" fault line " (east of Mount Tabor, on the eastern side of 
the Cambridge reservoir) the diorite rock of that region is 
cut by two fractures along which there has been some slip- 
ping and displacement, polishing of the rock surfaces along 
the planes of fracture, giving what are called " slickensides." 
These two fault planes run northeast-southwest, or roughly 
parallel to the escarpment, and so they may be minor frac- 
tures of a parallel set. 

Glacial History 

At the beginning of the glacial period — probably a 
score or even scores of thousands of years ago — New 
England had already gone through the geological history 
just outlined. The rock foundation had been built piece by 
piece, it had been wrinkled up into mountains, worn down 
to a lowland, then raised to a slanting position, and exten- 
sively cut into again by streams. Over this low upland of 
hills and valleys came the North American ice sheet, scrap- 
ing away all the soil, planing the surface down into firm 
rock, tearing and plucking blocks from exposed ledges, and 
thus changing the shape of the surface to a considerable 
degree. When later the ice sheet melted back, the rubbish 
that it had collected was spread out in deposits of different 
sorts over the rock surface, and New England took on the 
appearance that it has to-day. 

The nature of the ice sheet can be appreciated by reading 
one of the several good accounts of it, like G. F. Wright's 

121 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

" The Great Ice Age." The North American glacier was 
unlike modern Alpine glaciers in that it was not confined 
to the valleys but covered the whole region, so that not 
even Mount Washington stuck up through the ice fields. 
Ours was a " continental glacier," like the Greenland ice 
cap. Its centre of accumulation, or rather its centres, for 
it had three, were near Hudson's Bay ; and starting at these 
points it spread out radially in all directions, as an advan- 
cing sheet, until it covered the northern part of the United 
States, including all of New England as far south as Long 
Island, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The cause of 
the glacial period has been discussed for many years, and is 
still in dispute ; but one apparently good explanation is that 
the Gulf Stream was turned from its course by a wrinkling 
up of the sea bottom, and the climate of North America 
was thereby modified to one of great snow precipitation. 
Deflection of currents is known to have occurred in other 
cases, as for instance the Japan current, which was shut 
out of Behring Sea when the Aleutian Island ridge was up- 
heaved ; and, in a case like that, the climate would probably 
be seriously affected. 

The work that the ice sheet did, however, is much better 
understood. In Lincoln it left its marks in several ways. 

In the first place, the form of the hills shows glacial 
action. The northwest sides have gentle slopes, and the 
few outcrops there are low and rounded ; the southeast 
slopes, on the other hand, are abrupt and ragged, with more 
abundant outcrops. The ice moved over the country from 
north-northwest to south-southeast, and, as it ascended the 
hills, it smoothed the " struck" side but tore or " plucked " 
away blocks from the leeward side. Where a rock surface 
has been recently stripped of soil it may be fresh enough to 
show not only the smoothness peculiar to glaciated surfaces 
but also the scratches or " striae " made by boulders or 

122 



The Dr. Russell House 

Residence of Misses L. Jeimie and Elizabeth Chapin 

(p. 223) 



APPENDIX 

pebbles drawn across the surface by the ice. In both large 
and small ways, then, the erosive action of the ice sheet is 
illustrated. 

Glacial boulders, or " erratics," are also evidence of the 
ice age. They are merely blocks of rock that were torn up 
by the ice and carried along, suffering a good deal of round- 
ing and smoothing as they went ; and, finally, as the ice 
melted away, tumbling or settling to the ground. Often 
they are very large, as for instance one within sight of 
Walden road, on the old Baker farm. Most of the boulders 
in Lincoln are made of rock similar to the bed rock near by, 
so they probably have travelled only a short distance. Peg- 
matite, diorite, and granite are the most abundant. 

Boulders are of course only the larger fragments of rub- 
bish left by the ice sheet. If we leave out the alluvium, 
which is glacial rubbish worked over in recent times by 
streams, all the soil cover belongs to glacial deposits of one 
sort or another. Some of it is " ground moraine," or " till," 
deposited directly by the plastic ice wherever the ice cur- 
rents were too weak to carry off the supply of waste ; and 
other parts of it are gravel deposits derived from the ice 
sheet, but laid down through the agency of streams while 
the ice sheet melted away. 

Till occurs abundantly throughout the higher ground, in 
patches or sheets ; it is piled up rather thickly on the 
northern sides of many of the hills, for instance, the one 
northeast and the one southwest of Sandy Pond. Without 
the glacial deposits, these two hills would probably trend 
more definitely in a northeast-southwest direction, following 
the rock structure ; but the ice moving across them in a 
nearly perpendicular direction has given them a north-south 
trend. The hill halfway between the village and the station 
is a " drumlin," or high mound of till, lenticular in shape. 
Hagar Hill in South Lincoln is another. There seem to be 

123 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

no other true drumlins in the town, ahhough they occur 
throughout the State, and are very common in and around 
Boston Harbor. These drumHns bear the same relation to 
the ice sheet that sand bars bear to a river, or sand dunes 
bear to winds ; they are accumulations of waste brought 
about by the local inability of the ice currents to carry the 
load given them. 

Glacial gravels occur in Lincoln almost wholly on the 
lower ground, in the valleys. Their two usual forms of 
occurrence are " eskers " and " sand plains." 

Eskers are winding ridges of gravel built by streams that 
ran on the ground in tunnels under the ice, or in canons 
between ice walls. Under certain conditions of velocity and 
supply of gravel such a stream would upraise its bed, lay- 
ing down gravel along its course ; and when the ice melted 
away, and the supporting walls of the tunnel vanished, the 
gravels on either side of the old stream bed would slide 
down, giving, it the form of a steep-sided ridge. Eskers 
occur along the valley of Stony Brook above and below 
Beaver Pond. There are others in the northern part of the 
town, running from Sandy Pond road southwest across 
Goose Pond to Lake Walden, and thence southwards. 
Another esker runs near the railroad south of Lincoln 
station. They are curiously shaped ridges, and often passed 
as Indian mounds in the early days before the glacial period 
was thought of. " Serpent ridges " they are sometimes called, 
on account of their winding courses. 

Sand plains are delta-like deposits built by streams, which 
issued from the ice into a body of standing water at the ice 
front. Their flat top is the most striking element of form. 
Instead of being fan-shaped, like ordinary deltas, they are 
usually semi-elliptical in outline. Instead of reaching back 
to higher ground, in the way that ordinary deltas extend 
back to the shore of the lake in which they were built, sand 

124 



APPENDIX 

deltas are usually bounded by an abrupt slope — an " ice- 
contact slope " — because the delta was built forward from 
against the ice, and the ice subsequently melted back and 
caused the edge of the delta to slump down. From this 
back-slope the flat top of a plain slopes gently forward to 
the front border, which is often lobate in form, like an 
ordinary delta. One sand delta occurs near Massachusetts 
Avenue just south of Wellhead Pond. It has a good steep 
ice-contact slope on the northern side, marking the posi- 
tion of the front of the retreating ice at the time it was 
built. 

The best plains, however, lie in the southwestern part of 
the township, west of the station. Two very fine plains in 
this area — partly in Wayland — are important members 
of an extensive series of deltas built in an extinct glacial 
lake that occupied the greater part of the basin of the Sud- 
bury River while the ice sheet was retreating north, with its 
east-west front damming the northward flowing drainage. 
The gravel deposits near Lake Walden, and the plain cut 
by the railroad near Baker Bridge come into the same group 
of lake deposits. The most interesting feature of these del- 
tas is the fact that though all of them between Wayland 
village and Lake Walden were probably formed in a single 

lake glacial Lake Sudbury — at a time when its level was 

constant and controlled by the level of an outlet that passed 
down Cherry Brook, the deltas do not occur at the same 
altitude ; they measure separately all the way from i6o feet 
above sea level at Wayland to 195 feet at Walden. When 
it is seen, moreover, that the increase in height of deltas going 
north is exactly proportionate to their distance apart, it looks 
very much as if the whole region had been tilted up on the 
north since the ice sheet left it, so as to make the extinct 
water-plane slant southward at the rate of about six feet a 
mile. Such a movement of the region is not at all improbable, 

125 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

as it is known to have occurred elsewhere in the glaciated 
area, as near as western New York, and has been suspected 
in New England because of certain " raised beaches " along 
the coast, at Cape Ann and Mount Desert. In Scandinavia, 
too, the land has risen since an ice sheet melted off from it. 
Probably the removal of the weight of a thick ice sheet is 
itself sufficient to account for earth movements of this sort. 

One of the outlets of glacial Lake Sudbury in the later 
stages of its short life seems to have been across the divide 
near Wellhead, and south down Hobbs' Brook. Evidence of 
this is found in a small area of smooth bare rock, rounded as 
if waterworn by a torrential stream, which occurs by the side 
of the reservoir near Weston Street and just south of Con- 
cord Avenue. It looks very much as if a strong river had 
once swept over the ledges at this point, rounding their edges 
in a way that Hobbs' Brook with its present volume could 
never have done. Down Hobbs' Brook below the reservoir, 
also, there is a stretch of extremely bouldery ground which 
suggests that the old river swept over the till deposit at 
this point, carried with it all the clay, pebbles, and cobble- 
stones, and left only the pavement of boulders. 

In the ten thousand years or so since the ice age, remark- 
ably little change seems to have been brought about in the 
form of the glacial deposits. The complete foresting of the 
country, followed by the de-foresting and settlement of it 
within historic times, has certainly produced a very different 
looking region from that which the ice sheet left; but during 
all this the rains and streams seem hardly to have touched the 
deltas, or to have gullied the till on the hillsides. Very little 
soil has accumulated on the sand plains, too ; and probably 
because of the ease with which decaying vegetable growth 
can be carried down in solution through porous sands. 



126 



APPENDIX 
APPENDIX B 

(Page 32) 

As stated in the text, the first contemporaneous map, or 
plan, of Lincoln was that prepared by a committee appointed 
by a vote of the town in accordance with a Resolve of the 
General Court passed in 1794. Of this committee Samuel 
Hoar was chairman, and the plan prepared by him was re- 
produced in the published " Proceedings in Observance of the 
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Organization 
of the First Church" (p. 100). A mere outline sketch, 
it is familiar, and its reproduction is unnecessary. Upon it 
the bounds, the public ways in existence in 1794, and the 
principal watercourses, are indicated. The earliest known 
general map of the region about Boston, in any degree con- 
temporaneous or at all authentic in detail, is that entitled 
" The Seat of War in New England by an American Vol- 
unteer," published in London between February, 1775, and 
April, 1777. This map also is referred^to in the text (p. 32) 
and was reproduced, in somewhat reduced facsimile, in 1902, 
by Dr. S. A. Green in his " Ten Facsimile Reproductions 
Relating to New England" (p. 43). On this map Lincoln 
does not appear ; though Concord, Weston, Lexington and 
Bedford are all indicated, and the roads through Lincoln are 
laid down. There is no authentic contemporaneous map of 
Concord prior to the incorporation of Lincoln. Such a map 
was, however, prepared by William Wheeler, in 1884, from 
data contained in the records, and published in Charles H. 
Walcott's " Concord in the Colonial Period." On it are 
indicated, also, the boundary lines of Lincoln when incor- 
porated, as affecting the territories of Concord, Lexington 
and Weston, showing the actual and proportional area taken 

127 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

from each town ; also the roads laid out prior to incorpora- 
tion. This map, necessarily in some degree conjectural, is 
of great interest in connection with Lincoln, and is here 
reproduced. 

To trace the origin of each road, and the changes subse- 
quently made in it, is difficult in the case of any Massachu- 
setts town at all old. Lincoln is no exception to the rule. 
It can generally be done ; but doing it involves infinite pa- 
tience, and almost endless labor. A careful study of both 
county and town records must be made, including orders 
of Court, the conveyances of real estate, and the wills on 
file in the probate offices. Not only are the entries in the 
town-books both obscure and deceptive, but the metes and 
bounds given were generally of a very perishable nature, — 
a white oak tree, a pile of stones or even fence rails, the 
corner of a barn, or the holding of some person whose name 
has died out. 

As stated in the text (p. 32), Boston being both the point 
from which development worked its way out, and the prin- 
cipal objective of trade and travel, all the original roads and 
ways naturally formed themselves on the most convenient 
lines, usually those of least resistance, in connection with 
the main thoroughfares from and to Boston. Prior to the 
incorporation of Lincoln the only wagon way to Boston 
was by the old Worcester road, which was reached from 
Concord by way of Sudbury or Watertown. The Bay Road, 
as it was called, through the north part of Lincoln and 
Lexington, went to Charlestown. The line of the Bay Road 
was substantially that of the historic Lexington-Concord 
route, modified, straightened, and, in places, relocated to 
meet growing requirements. The origin and development 
of the southern road were more complicated. Formerly 
known as the Sudbury Way, this road, for one going from 
Boston to Concord, left the Worcester artery at what is 

128 



APPENDIX 

now Wayland Centre, but, originally, Sudbury meeting- 
house ; for, incorporated as Sudbury in 1637, and becom- 
ing East Sudbury in 1780, that locality was set off and 
christened Wayland as recently as 1835. The way then 
ran almost due north, through the woods, to Concord. On 
it still stands the seventeenth century Farrar house. 

A highway from Watertown to Concord was laid out, 
we are told," in 1638. This road, running in a west by 
north direction, — the present Waltham North Avenue, — 
joined the Sudbury Way, immediately north of the Farrar 
homestead, and, turning north and then again west, crossed 
the brook. Thence, Walcott says, " the most ancient road," 
long since wholly discontinued, turned sharply after passing 
the old eighteenth century Baker homestead, crossed the 
deep ravine between Walden and Fairhaven-bay, south of 
the Fitchburg railroad filling, and thence found its way to 
Concord, emerging from the woods at the settlement now 
known as Hubbardsville. The present direct line of road 
from Concord to Waltham, skirting the north bank of 
Walden and paralleling the Fitchburg railroad from Baker's 
Bridge through the Codman place, was not laid out until a 
much later period. Indeed, the separation of Lincoln from 
Concord, and its incorporation as an independent town, 
was to no small extent due, as related in the text, to a 
controversy between Chambers Russell and the inhabitants 
of the mother town over the laying out through his place of 
this more direct route to Waltham and Boston. Since 1754 
it has constituted the southern artery of the town ; the sec- 
tion of road from Baker's Bridge to the brook having been 
laid out when the road at that point was relocated in 1843, 
at the time the Fitchburg railroad was under construction. 

The old Waltham road was continued across the Sud- 
bury Way to Lee's Bridge and Nine-acre Corner in 1760, 

' Walcott's Concord in Colonial Days, p. 80. 
129 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

after the incorporation of the town, and subsequent to 
the laying out of the more direct Waltham road, north 
of Walden. Later, in the turnpike and stage-coach period, 
between 1790 and 1845, the southern, or lower artery, was 
known in Lincoln as the Lancaster stage-road, while the 
corresponding east and west route through the north of the 
township — avoiding the intermediate high ground on which 
the village of Lincoln stands — became known as the Keene 
stage-road. These two were the original travelled ways of 
Lincoln, — its spinal columns; and, so far as the plans and 
maps show, they were the only county roads, so-called, in 
the Lincoln territory until long after the incorporation of the 
town. As in Concord, there were numerous drift-ways, 
farm-ways, and private ways for the accommodation of 
owners of land ; and these from time to time were by town- 
meeting action made public ways. Afterwards, as already 
said, they were frequently discontinued and vacated. In 
the Samuel Hoar plan of 1794 only the county roads are 
indicated ; but a large number of these subordinate and 
intersecting town ways had already been voted. The road 
from Lincoln Centre to Walden Pond, and so to Concord, 
seems to have been laid out at an early day ; that from 
Flint's, or Sandy, Pond to Concord, direct, though indicated 
on Walcott's " colonial period " map, was not formally 
laid out until about J 8 10. It probably existed prior to that 
time as a travelled woodway. What is now the great inter- 
secting artery of the town, the road from Lincoln village 
to the railroad station, and thence to the intersection of the 
old Watertown road, was, until after 1850, a mere country 
cross-road, comparatively little used. It was straightened 
out and rebuilt in 1894. Prior to that time it connected 
with the Tower Road to Weston over what had been the 
dam of a water power, on the brook from Sandy to Beaver 
Pond. In the early days South Lincoln was familiarly 

130 



APPENDIX 

known as Watertowne Corner, and was largely held under 
two grants, the Bulkeley, now Codman, of 750 acres, and 
the Stow, now Farrar, of 666 acres. Flint's farm, 750 
acres, lay east of Sandy Pond, on Lincoln hill. 

Many of the most ancient ways have lapsed, and long 
since reverted to private ownership. They can now only 
with difficulty be traced. This, for instance, has been 
the case with the original Watertown connection with the 
Concord-Lexington road, on the north side of Lincoln hill ; 
also with the Concord- Waltham road, south of Lake Wal- 
den. The names of localities, as well as roads and ways, 
have also lapsed, or passed out of use ; while others have 
been substituted for them. Some remain, but have to a 
large extent lost their significance. For instance, in the 
cases already cited, the Bay Road and the Sudbury Way. 
The Tower Road and the Trapelo Road are examples of 
ways still called after families once living on them, long 
since gone. But, in brief, the three controlling influences 
in the case of Lincoln road development were (i) access to 
the meeting-house ; (2) access to Boston, as described in 
the text ; and (3) access to the railroad station. The meet- 
ing-house influence made itself felt between 1747 and 1760 ; 
the changes incident to the more direct route opened to 
Boston by the building of the Cambridge bridges were grad- 
ually worked out between 1790 and 1820 ; and, finally, the 
changes which followed the opening of the railroad, begun 
in 1843, w^""^ "o^ completed until 1894. 

It is greatly to be regretted that from the beginning a 
different usage has not prevailed. Metes, bounds and in- 
dications should have been more monumental in character ; 
and every edifice erected, public or private, should have its 
date of origin upon it. It is merely a matter of usage, in- 
volving little trouble and small additional expense. The old 
provincial milestones, referred to in the text, with initials, 

131 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

dates and distances cut upon them, have now great anti- 
quarian interest ; they are carefully preserved. It would be 
the same with edifices, had the custom of marking them 
prevailed. In a town which had a true appreciation of its 
history and traditions, every finger-board would serve as a 
record. No stone post would be planted as a mete or bound 
which did not bear an indication of its purpose, together 
with the date of its planting. 



APPENDIX C 

(Page 4.3) 

Adams, Brooks, Smith 

Mr. Lawrence spells his young wife's maiden name 
with a double " d." That marriage, more than a century 
and a half ago, caused me for obvious reasons to feel a 
family interest in the Rev. William Lawrence. Love Adams 
was, it seems, a daughter of one John Adams, a name — 
spelled always with a single " d " — which frequently ap- 
pears in the Concord and Lincoln records. The marriage 
of William Lawrence to Love Adams, the daughter of the 
Concord John Adams, took place on the 7th of January, 
1750. Nearly fifteen years later, on the 25th of October, 
1764, another John Adams, living in Braintree, was mar- 
ried at Weymouth to Abigail Smith, the daughter of William 
Smith, pastor of the church in that town. I chance to be 
one of the off^spring of that union ; and the John Adams then 
married was a descendant in the fourth generation of a cer- 
tain Henry Adams who came, it is said, from Devonshire, 
England, in 1633, with his eight sons, scattering a numer- 
ous progeny over the entire land. In his Church Manual 
of 1872 (p. 57) the Rev. Henry Jackson Richardson, the 

132 



APPENDIX 

fifth successor of William Lawrence(i86o— 92), states that 
the Concord John Adams was a great-grandson of that same 
Henry Adams, and, accordingly, a cousin, though far re- 
moved, of the John of Braintree. A similar statement as to 
the descent of John, of Concord, from the Braintree Henry, 
is made by Robert M. Lawrence, M. D., in his volume 
(p. 73), published in 1888, entitled " Historical Sketches 
of Some Members of the Lawrence Family." Both Mr. 
Richardson and Dr. Lawrence seem to have accepted, and, 
without independent investigation, followed Shattuck, in his 
" History of Concord, and Thayer, in his " Memorial of the 
Thayer and Adams Families," with whom the statement ap- 
parently originated. To the same effect in the Genealogy of 
the Minot family ' it is stated that " Captain Daniel Adams 
lived in the south part of Lincoln, then within the limits of 
Concord, on the road from Waltham to Stow. He was the son 
of Joseph, and grandson of John Adams, one of the eight 
sons of Henry of Quincy." His brother John lived near the 
centre of Lincoln, married Love Minot, and their daughter 
Lucy married Rev. William Lawrence, of Lincoln. These 
are very direct statements ; but James Savage, after the manner 
of genealogists, quite discredits them. He characteristically 
remarks ^ that John, of Cambridge, was son of Henry, the 
first, " as amiable credulity would assume, is highly improba- 
ble, since he came [to Massachusetts] twenty years, or a little 
less, after that great progenitor, and so long outlived him." 
This John, of Cambridge, was the progenitor of Mistress 
Love [Adams] Lawrence. But the doubt thus thrown on 
the Henry Adams descent is less conclusive than Savage 
supposed. Henry Adams, of Braintree, certainly had a son, 
John, born in England about 1624. That son survived his 
father, who died in 1644. Tradition has it, a son returned 

' Neiv England Genealogical and Antiquarian Register, ^^47^ P- ' 76- 
* Genealogical Dictionary, vol. i, p. 1 1 . 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

to England with his mother and sister, named Ursula. The 
mother there died ; not impossibly the son may have come 
back to New England, settling in Cambridge, where he died 
in 1706, "at an advanced age," about eighty-five, thus 
outliving Henry Adams no less than sixty years. In age 
John of Cambridge thus corresponds with John, the son of 
Henry. The identity cannot be established positively ; but 
the weight of evidence is in its favor. The Rev. Andrew 
N. Adams is non-committal on this point. In his elaborate 
" Adams History " (p. 958) he says : " Considering the con- 
flict, or contrariety of opinion, and the doubt which naturally 
attaches to absence of direct evidence, the writer has decided 
to give what he has been able to gather of the record and 
history of '- John of Cambridge,' . . . leaving it to every 
reader to form his own belief as to the identity of John of 
Cambridge with the son of Henry of Braintree." Adams is 
one of the more common Anglo-Saxon names. There were 
certainly two, and not improbably several, bearing the name 
in Cambridge, Watertown, and Concord in colonial times ; 
and, while connection may in some cases have existed, and 
the probabilities may even favor such a connection, it cannot 
be positively asserted. There was a George of Watertown, 
a John of Cambridge, and a Robert of Newbury, as well as 
a Henry of Braintree. They, as well as others of the name, 
all came to New England between 1630 and 1655. 

In the matter of connection with the Lincoln stock, I 
was more fortunate on the distaff side. My mother, Abigail 
Brown Brooks, was the eleventh, and youngest, child of 
Peter Chardon Brooks, of Medford. Mr. Brooks (1767- 
1849) was a descendant in the fourth generation of Caleb 
Brooks, the son of Thomas Brooks, who came over in, or 
before, 163 1, and settled first in Watertown and then in 
Concord. Joshua, another son of Thomas Brooks, estab- 
lished himself in Concord, and from him, in the fourth 

134 



APPENDIX 

generation, was descended the General Eleazer Brooks, of 
revolutionary fame (i 727-1 806). On the mother's side, 
consequently, I am the cousin, seven times removed, of the 
descendants of General Eleazer Brooks, now living in Lin- 
coln. 

Furthermore, Mr. Wheeler in his sketch of Lincoln in 
Kurd's " History of Middlesex County " (vol. ii, p. 624) says 
that " Captain William Smith, son of the Rev. William 
Smith of Weymouth, commanded a company in Colonel 
Nixon's regiment at Cambridge in 1775, and in Colonel 
Brooks's regiment in 1776." I have always understood also 
that William Smith commanded the company of Lincoln 
Minute-men. The Rev. William Smith of Weymouth wajs 
of Charlestown descent ; but in some way he became the 
possessor of a farm in Lincoln. He had a son, William, 
and several daughters, among them Abigail, who became 
Mrs. John Adams. Presumably, the son settled on his 
father's Lincoln farm; and, if so, he was, in 1775, a man 
of twenty-nine. Of him little is recorded. The name is so 
common that I do not feel assured the Captain William 
Smith of Lincoln was the brother of Abigail Adams. Such, 
however, is unquestionably the Lincoln tradition. 



APPENDIX D 

(Page 43) 
CoDMAN Place 

This estate, and the colonial mansion upon it, would 
afford in itself, and in connection with the Russell family, 
ample material for a monograph, both characteristic and 
interesting. It is the story of a family of the provincial 
days, the owners of a considerable landed property in a Mas- 

135 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

sachusetts country town, and the occupants for generations 
of a typical colonial house. In that house were collected 
much furniture, and many objects of art. Distinctly belong- 
ing to the gentry of the provincial period, this family bore 
its full share in the vicissitudes of the revolutionary period, 
going into exile and suffering forfeiture of property. Its 
records, and the letters exchanged between its members, 
would afford an interesting contribution to eighteenth cen- 
tury history. Such a sketch, however, including as it should, 
to be at all complete, numerous maps, plans, illustrations 
and copies of family pictures, could not properly be made 
part of a town commemoration. It should be prepared in- 
dependently ; and the present Ogden Codman has accu- 
mulated all the material necessary to a work of great 
interest individually, as well as in connection with the town 
of Lincoln. 

Chambers Russell was the son of Daniel Russell, and 
was born July 4, 17 13. He was graduated at Harvard in 
the class of 1731. Subsequently he studied law with John 
Reed, a prominent member of the provincial bar of that 
period, and shortly after being admitted to the bar he be- 
came engaged in public business. April 2, 1738, he married 
Mary, daughter of Francis Wheelwright, merchant, she 
being also a granddaughter of Gov. Dudley. His wife died 
in 1762, in the forty-fifth year of her age. They had no 
children. The death of his wife was a severe blow to him ; 
and, being out of health, he was advised to cross the At- 
lantic. He sailed for London in October, 1766; and died 
in England, November 24 of the same year, having barely 
survived the passage.' The following quaint notice of him 

' According to Lincoln records, which the authorities (Shattuclc, p. 317) have all 
followed, Chambers Russell died at Guildford, Surrey, England, November 24, 
1767. This is obviously an error, inasmuch as mention of his death " on the 24th 
day of November last, in the 54th year of his age " is found in the Massachusetts 
Gazette of January 15, 1767, and in the Boston Post Boy and Ad'verther of four 

136 



The Foster House 

Residence of Moorfield Storey, Esq. 

(p. 224) 




ilASMESS^ 



APPENDIX 

subsequently appeared in the Massachusetts " Gazette " of 
January 15, 1767: — 

" By Capt. Dixey from London we have received the 
melancholy news of the death of the late Hon. Chambers 
Russell, Esq., who, after a short illness of three days, de- 
parted this life in Guildford in Surrey, on the 24th day of 
November last in the 54th year of his age. 

" A gentleman who's truly upright and amiable character, 
in public and private life, had justly endeared him to all who 
had any knowledge of him, but more especially to those who 
were favored with his particular friendship and intimacy. In 
the year 1746 he received, unexpected and unsolicited. His 
Majesty's commission, appointing him Judge of the Court 
of Vice Admiralty for the Provinces of the Massachusetts 
Bay and New Hampshire, and the Colony of Rhode Island, 
which he held until a few years ago, when, Rhode Island 
being made a separate District,he was commissioned for the 
two provinces only, in which station he continued until his 
decease. He was for several years one of the Justices of the 
Inferior Court of Common Pleas, for the County of Mid- 
dlesex, and in the year 1752 he was removed from that 
Bench, and appointed one of the Justices of the Superior 
Court of Judicature of this Province, which important office 
he sustained till his death. In the space of about 26 years 
he was almost uninterruptedly chosen by the towns of 
Charlestown, Concord or Lincoln to represent them at the 
General Court, and in the years 1756 and 1760, he was 
elected one of the members of His Majesty's Honorable 
Council, after which he voluntarily resigned his seat at the 
Board, and was again chosen Representative of the town of 

days later, Januarj' 19. As he was born July 4, 1 71 3, he was fifty-three on July 4, 
1766, and in the following November he was " in the 54th year of his age." Had 
he died, as recorded in the Lincoln town-books,' November 24, 1767, he would 
have died in his fifty-fifth year. 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Lincoln. In these several stations he discharged the trust 
reposed in him with great ability and the most unsullied in- 
tegrity, — ever maintaining a sacred regard for the laws and 
constitution of his country and the rights and liberties of his 
fellow subjects, avoiding with scrupulous conscientiousness 
whatever might have a possible tendency to warp or bias his 
judgment, and always giving the surest evidence of his un- 
alterable intention and endeavor to make the Rule of Right 
the governing principle of all his actions. 

" In private life his character shone with distinguished 
luster. He exhibited an example of the most tender con- 
jugal affection, during a course of many years, in which he 
was happy in a most agreeable, sensible and virtuous con- 
sort. 

" He was an uncommonly kind and indulgent Master, ever 
considering and treating his slaves as entitled to the rights 
of humanity, and making them in all respects as happy as 
was consistent with their state. As a proof of his just and 
humane sentiments in this respect, it may not be amiss to 
mention that in his last will he has made special provision 
that none of his slaves shall be sold, but in case any of 
them through age or other bodily infirmity become useless, 
they shall be comfortably supported out of his estate during 
their natural lives. 

" All the inhabitants of the county and towns in which 
he resided are witnesses of his numerous acts of generosity 
and beneficence, both of a public and private nature, and 
it may be said of him in an eminent sense that ' he deliv- 
ered the poor that cried and the fatherless and him that had 
none to help him.' The blessings of him that was ready 
to perish came upon him — he was eyes to the blind, feet 
to the lame, and a father to the poor. 

" His hospitality was such that friends and strangers who 
visited him, were received and entertained with a cheerful 

138 



APPENDIX 

open liberality which denoted a real sense of obligation on 
his part. In his friendships he was warm and sincere, and 
such were the favorable allowances which his candor made 
for the frailties of humanity that even an injury never pre- 
vented his bounty and kind offices to the author of it. 

" To conclude the outline of this truly worthy character, 
it may with justice be said that in the death of Judge 
Russell his country has lost a disinterested patriot, his in- 
timates an amiable companion, and mankind a sure and 
hearty friend. 

The man who by his steady course 

Has happiness insured, 
When earth's foundations shake, shall stand 

By Providence secured." 

In a foot-note to Quincy's " Reports," pp. 232, 233, is 
the following reference to his associate, Judge Russell, made 
by Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson in course of his charge 
to the Grand Jury at the March Term of the Superior 
Court of Judicature VII George III (1767): — 

" Before I say Anything to the Grand Jury, it is highly 
proper that I should take Notice of the Death of One of 
the Judges of this Court. I have no Talent for it, and am 
an Enemy to traducing and vilifying the Characters of Men, 
when alive, and of flattering them when dead. Yet Justice 
to Judge Russell obliges me to say Something of his Death. 
Every one who knew him in private Life, must acknowledge 
him a most amiable Man. I scarce ever knew his Equal. 
He might be truly characterized as a Lover of Mankind, 
and no higher Character can, I think, be given of any One. 
Nothing more need be said to recommend him, especially at 
this Time. 

'' The several Posts of Honour which he bore, he sus- 
tained with Dignity. As a Legislator, I had an Oppor- 
tunity to observe his Conduct, both as a Member of the 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Council and House of Representatives. And I know that 
he ever engaged on that Side which had Truth and Justice 
for its Support. As a Judge of the Admiralty, his Conduct 
was most unexceptionable. And I believe none of his De- 
crees, but met with universal Approbation, except at Times, 
when Party-spirit and Animosities ran high, and made it 
a Thing impossible, for any Judge, in any Department, to 
give Satisfaction. His Conduct in this Court — I appeal to 
the Gentlemen of the Bar — was such as pronounced him 
the Judge, and a Man of strict Integrity. Although we all 
have some Byass, — 't is impossible for human Nature to 
be without, — yet if he had any Byass, it was ever in Favour 
of Virtue. 

" Justice has been done this worthy Character, already, 
in publick, in an unexceptionable and elegant Manner.' 
The best Use that we can make, is to follow his Path and 
imitate his Virtues ; especially, as we all must shortly follow 
him to give our Account to the Judge of us all." 

Brief biographical sketches of Chambers Russell, or re- 
ferences to him, are to be found in Shattuck's " Concord " (p. 
317), in Richardson's " Church Manual " (p. 92), in Hurd's 
" History of Middlesex County " (vol. ii, p. 636), and in 
the " Proceedings of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Church 
Anniversary " (p. 63). A print from the portrait by Copley 
is also included in the " Proceedings." Allusions and re- 
ferences to him are contained in John Adams's " Works," 
vol. ii, p. 333, and iv, pp. 5, 72, 73. Also in Quincy's 
" Reports," p. 427. 

The Chambers Russell estate, now the property of his 
collateral descendant, is believed to be a part of the original 
Bulkeley grants, made at the time of the settlement of 
Concord. Of these grants there seem to have been two, one 
of three hundred acres " towards Cambridge," and one to 

' Referring to the foregoing notice in the Massachusetts Gazette. 
140 



APPENDIX 

Grace Bulkeley of seven hundred and fifty acres. The seven 
hundred and fifty acre grant is thought to have included 
what is now known as the Codman place. It lay between 
Sandy Pond, Lake Walden and Fairhaven-bay, and was in- 
tersected in the beginning by the Concord-Sudbury road ; 
at a later day (1754) by the Lincoln-Waltham road ; and, 
finally (1844) by the right-of-way of the Fitchburg railroad. 
It originally included most of the holdings now (1904) 
belonging to Henry S. Warner, H. L. Higginson, George 
Baker and C. F. Adams, as well as the Codman place. 

The original Bulkeley grant, made prior to 1665, after 
passing through various hands, was purchased, in whole 
or part, by Charles Chambers, of Charlestown. He built 
on it the large, colonial mansion house, still standing, for 
Chambers Russell, the eldest son of his only child Re- 
becca, to whom he, by his will, left the property. This 
Charles Chambers was a man of prominence in the Pro- 
vince, coming to Massachusetts from Lincolnshire, Eng- 
land, about 1688, and dying in Charlestown, his place of 
residence, in 1743. Coming over when a young man of 
twenty-seven, he was for many years a member of the 
Council of the Province, and a judge of the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas. He was twice married ; and by his second 
wife, Rebecca Patefield, had one child, Rebecca, born 
March 31, 1 691, who subsequently married Daniel Russell. 
He also lived in Charlestown. Born in 1685, Daniel Rus- 
sell, like Charles Chambers, was many years a member of 
the Council, and for over fifty years treasurer of Middlesex 
County. By his wife, Rebecca Chambers, Daniel Russell 
had nine children, the second of which, Chambers, was 
born July 4, 17 13. His mother, Mrs. Daniel Russell, died 
in 1729, fourteen years before the death of her father, the 
owner of the Lincoln property. Chambers Russell himself, 
passing his youth at Charlestown, entered Harvard at four- 

141 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

teen, and was graduated in the class of 173 1. At that time 
it was the practice to print the names of those composing 
the class, not, as now, in alphabetical order, but the place of 
each was assigned arbitrarily, and in accordance with the 
social estimate in which his family was held. For instance, 
John Adams was graduated in 1755, twenty-four years 
after Chambers Russell. Alphabetically his name would 
have been first on the list of his class ; the fourteenth place 
in twenty-four was assigned to him. Alphabetically, 
Chambers Russell would appear twenty-fourth in his class 
of thirty-four ; he does appear first. The esteem in which 
both the Russell and the Chambers families were held is 
shown in this assignment. 

Soon after graduation Chambers Russell settled in that 
part of Lincoln then belonging to Concord, on his grand- 
father's farm. He married seven years later, in his twenty- 
fifth year ; and, probably, the original L shaped house 
had then already been built. After Lincoln was set-ofF 
and incorporated Chambers Russell was eight times sent 
to represent it in the General Court. He was appointed 
a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1747, and 
also of Vice Admiralty j in 1752 he was commissioned 
as judge of the Superior Court of Judicature, then the tri- 
bunal of final appeal. In August, 1762, his wife died, in 
Lincoln, never having borne children. Upon the death of 
Mrs. Russell, described at some length in the town-book 
of records as " the virtuous consort " etc.. Judge Russell, 
then already it would seem in failing health, reluctantly 
decided to visit England. Dying there, he was buried in 
Bunhill Fields, London, where a monument in his memory 
subsequently stood. Having no children, he bequeathed his 
place in Lincoln to his nephew Charles Russell, the son of 
his younger brother, James (17 15-1758). Charles Russell, 
born in Charlestown in 1738, was graduated in 1757, his 

142 



APPENDIX 

name appearing sixth in a class numbering twenty-six. Study- 
ing medicine, first in this country and subsequently in Eng- 
land, he received (1765) a doctor's degree from the University 
of Aberdeen. Returning to Massachusetts he settled as a 
physician in Lincoln, his uncle having left to him the farm. 
He then (1768) married Elizabeth Vassall, of Cambridge, 
by whom he had five children, all born in Lincoln. An 
eminent man in his profession, and in every way a useful 
citizen, Dr. Charles Russell was, in politics, a Tory and 
loyalist, and subsequently an exile. Lincoln, as the Rev. 
William Lawrence had occasion at that time to know, was 
patriotic in sentiment ; and, probably. Dr. Russell had been 
made to realize that his neighbors viewed him with suspicion. 
In any event, he is said to have left Lincoln in the midst of 
the excitement of April 19, 1775. He then, temporarily, 
exchanged dwellings with Henderson Inches, a merchant 
resident in Boston, who was as anxious to move out of that 
town, then besieged, as Dr. Russell was anxious to move 
into it. Shortly after, he sailed for the island of Antigua, in 
the West Indies, where Mrs. Vassall, his mother-in-law, 
had inherited plantations. All the Vassalls were loyalists. 
Placed in charge of the hospital established at Antigua for 
the prisoners of war from the States, he demeaned himself 
in that position most creditably, and his countrymen under 
his charge were open in their expressions of gratitude. He 
died at Antigua in May, 1780, while the war was yet going 
on, and at about the time of the capture of Charleston by 
Lord Cornwallis, a few months previous to the Benedict 
Arnold treason ; his widow and children, later, returned to 
Massachusetts. Meanwhile, when in March, 1776, the 
British evacuated Boston, Mr. Inches returned to his house 
there from Lincoln. Apparently the Russell house remained 
unoccupied, until James Russell, the father of Dr. Charles, 
moved into it from his place of refuge at Dunstable ; for, 

143 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill, Charlestown had 
been burned, and James Russell's house destroyed. The 
house and farm at Lincoln were the property of his son, a 
loyalist refugee, proscribed under the Banishment Act of 
1778. The son's estate was confiscated; and, December 
10, 1777, agency of it had been granted to Elnathan Jones, 
of Concord. 

A new complication involving the title to the Lincoln 
property now arose. When Chambers Russell was making 
his arrangements for going to England, in 1766, he mort- 
gaged his house and farm to John Hancock to secure a 
loan of ;^3000, or ;^ 10,000. James Russell was execu- 
tor of Chambers Russell, and he now came forward, with 
evidence that this mortgage, never having been discharged, 
was an existing lien on the estate. His son. Chambers 
Russell, second of the name, and a brother of Dr. Charles, 
thereupon purchased the equity of redemption, and in 1784 
discharged the mortgage. He thus became by purchase the 
owner of the confiscated farm, which had belonged to his 
brother. 

The younger Chambers Russell was born in Charlestown 
in 1755. A merchant by calling, he accumulated a hand- 
some fortune, and died in Charleston, S. C, in 1790. He 
left the Lincoln estate to his nephew, Charles Russell Cod- 
man, the son of his youngest sister, Margaret (1757— 1789), 
who had married John Codman, Jr., of Boston. 

It was now that the Russell place passed into the Cod- 
man family. John Codman, Jr. (i 755-1 803), finding that 
the estate of his brother-in-law, the younger Chambers Rus- 
sell, would be insufficient to meet the legacies in his will 
without selling the place at Lincoln, decided to pay the 
legacies himself, and take the place. He did so, occupying 
the mansion house, which he remodelled and enlarged, as a 
country residence. Dying, he bequeathed the property to 

144 



APPENDIX 

his second son, Charles Russell Codman, carrying out his 
brother-in-law's wishes in that respect. 

Charles Russell Codman, born in Boston, December 19, 
1784, was not yet of age when he inherited the Lincoln 
property, — the fifth in descent from Charles Chambers. 
He came of age in 1805, and shortly after divided the farm, 
selling the northern portion of it, on which stood the old 
farmhouse, in which Dr. Stearns for years lived, to Amos 
Bemis, in 1807. The southern, and larger, portion, on 
which stood the mansion, the slaves' quarters, and the 
principal farm structures, including the farmhouse, he con- 
veyed May 23, 1807, to Charles De Wolf, a member of 
the well-known Rhode Island family of that name. The 
Chambers Russell estate now changed ownership frequently. 
Charles De Wolf, having bought it in May, 1807, in 
18 1 2 conveyed it to Andrew Homer, of Boston. Andrew 
Homer in his turn conveyed it in 1 81 6 to James Percival. 
He died at Lincoln in 1826; and in 1835 his executors 
sold the " Codman farm " to C. F. Minns, a merchant of 
Boston. Mr. Minns died at Lincoln in 1841 ; and, under 
date of November 14, 1862, his widow and children con- 
veyed the property, described as " a certain farm in Lincoln, 
called the Codman place," to Ogden Codman, the son of 
the Charles Russell Codman, who, fifty-five years before, 
had sold the place to Charles De Wolf. Ogden Codman 
was owner of it forty-two years, dying in Lincoln October 
25, 1904. He was the tenth in ownership of the mansion 
since it was built, circa 1710, the successive occupants 
having been as follows : — 

Charles Chambers, to 1743 

Chambers Russell, ^743 ^o 1767 

Charles Russell, ^7^7 to 1775 

Chambers Russell, 1781 to 1790 
145 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

John Codman, 1790 to 1803 

Charles Russell Codman, 1803 to 1807 
Charles De Wolf, 1807 to 18 12 

Andrew Homer, 1812 to 1816 

James Percival, 1816 to 1835 

Constant F. Minns, 1835 to 1862 

Ogden Codman, 1862 to 1904 

Ogden Codman, the recent owner of the place, was a 
descendant of Charles Chambers, of Daniel Russell, and 
of John Codman ; but not of Judge Chambers Russell, nor 
of Dr. Charles Russell. Chambers Russell, so closely asso- 
ciated in every way with the origin and development of 
Lincoln, left no progeny. Ogden Codman was also the 
eleventh owner of the place in succession, whether by 
descent, bequest or purchase, from Charles Chambers, the 
whole period covering, approximately, two centuries. 



ANNIVERSARY POEM 

By Julius E. Eveleth 

Nestling close and secure among the grand New 
England hills, 
Where the breezes softly laden bear sweet per- 
fumes all the day, 
Lies a gem of rustic beauty with its rocks and flow- 
ing rills. 
And lakes of silvery water rich with shadows soft 
and gray. 

The wooded sloping hillsides, the fields of green and 
brown. 
The pastures specked with cattle so placid and 
content, 
The spires that point to heaven and mark the rural 
town. 
The plowman's cheery laughter on work or plea- 
sure bent ; 

All speak of peace and plenty, the charm of country- 
life ; 
No eager thirst for riches, the canker that doth 
spoil. 
Content to dwell with nature apart from the hum 
and strife. 
The richest lord of the manor ; a tiller of the soil. 
H7 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

A home for sturdy yeomen of the type that left the 
shore 
Of the far-off mother country, the land that gave 
them birth, 
To breathe the air of freedom that was richly held in 
store 
Awaited the glad coming of these noble sons of 
earth. 

No easy task befell them to fix the ground for 
seed. 
To clear the tangled wild-wood and hew the logs 
of pine ; 
The autumn's yellow ripeness was sorely in their 
need. 
The tasselled corn to harvest and fruit of running 
vine. 

The whirr of flying arrow, the clang of bended 
bow. 
Oft broke upon the quiet and darkness of the 
night; 
The war-whoop's warning signal marked the coming 
of the foe ; 
To defend, the only watchword, no coward's 
thought of flight. 

The rigors of the winter, the need of warmth and 
food, 
Only fanned the flaming ardor, nor quenched the 
firm desire ; 

148 



ANNIVERSARY POEM 

The danger that lay waiting in the darkness of the 
wood, 
Knit the bond of friendship closer as the steel is 
forged by fire. 

A band of godly people where duty grew apace, 
With courage of conviction and purpose not in 
vain. 
These sons of Pilgrim Fathers, the peers of any race. 
With nerves of steely texture and strength of heart 
and brain, 

Pursued the even tenor of the thrifty husbandman, 
Believing that the harvest would follow without fail 

The labor of the seed-time, nor cease in nature's plan 
To reward with sure abundance the threshing of 
the flail. 

Years pass in rhythmic order, the sun, the moon, the 
star 
Fail not to keep their orbit and light by day and 
night ; 
The hoary frosts of winter leave trace of seam and 
scar. 
The whitened locks grow thinner and dimness 
mars the sight. 

Clouds fleck the fair horizon, there are murmurs in 
the air 
Which speak of dire oppression from far off over 

seas. 

149 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

The tyrant's hungry coffers must fatten, foul or 
fair, 
Resistance, to the mandate, is borne on every 
breeze. 

The blood that coursed the veins of men who 
sought a shore, 
Of barren rock and forest gloom, sweet liberty to 
gain, 
Still filled the brain and swelled the heart with cour- 
age as of yore, 
And needed but a spark to fire rebellion's lurid 
train. 

More lurid grew the western sky as sunset marked 
the hour 
Of daylight's fading glory and the coming of the 
night. 
So darker grew the future, as the crushing sense of 
power 
Obscured the light of freedom ; the hope of peace 
took flight. 

The plowshare and the musket grew friendly side 
by side. 
To mould and turn the furrow and answer to the 
sound 
Of the distant rolling drums, as a warning to pro- 
vide 
'Gainst the coming of the foe, and defend the 
sacred ground. 

150 



The Dr. Stearns House 

Residence of Mr. Cyrus Grosvenor Smith 

(p. 225) 



ANNIVERSARY POEM 

The brows of men grew sterner at the thought of 
coming strife, 
And their hearts grew only stronger, as they felt 
the patriots' thrill; 
To gain the priceless treasure meant sacrifice of life, 
The honored graves of martyrs were theirs to 
bravely fill. 

When on that fateful morning the drum-beat called 
to arms 
The minute men of Concord and the brotherhood 
of towns, 
And beside the flowing river from off the peaceful 
farms 
A host of patriots gathered in response to martial 
sounds ; 

None braver stood or truer, than the noble valiant few 
From the hamlet on the border, first to greet the 
rising sun ; 
Where Revere, the peerless rider 'neath the mid- 
night's falling dew 
Was halted on his mission ; but the noble work 
was done. 

The news went flying onward as another horseman 
sped. 
O'er wall and rocky pasture in the darkness of 
the night. 
And aroused the soldier farmers as he bravely 
dashed ahead. 
They needed only warning to follow in the flight. 
151 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

The muffled hoof-beats sounded along the winding 
road 
Of Lincoln's northern border on that starlit April 
night. 
No thought of backward turning, the gallant Pres- 
cott rode 
A herald with a summons, a champion of the right. 

Responsive to the warning, alert and eager men, 
In the name of God and Freedom, and the hearth 
they held so dear, 
Went forth to battle nobly, nor thought they where 
or when 
The summons might be waiting to call them 
home from here. 

The daylight of the morrow as it tinged the eastern 
sky 
Like a prayer and benediction fell on hearts with 
passion tossed ; 
The sunset's purple shadows closed a day, when do 
or die 
The angel had recorded. The Rubicon was 
crossed. 

Historian, sage, and poet tell the story of that day 
And recall the noble valor the minute men dis- 
played ; 
A righteous cause demanded they bravely meet the 
fray 
And trust the God of battles, 'gainst the odds so 
great arrayed. 

152 



ANNIVERSARY POEM 

Brave men went down in glory, and Lincoln's soil 
drank deep 
Of the sacred blood of martyrs that were sacri- 
ficed for right. 
Her tablets mark with honor the hallowed spots we 
keep 
In sacred recollection through the ages' waning 
light. 

Ere a century had recorded its span of passing 
years, 
The flag, the sacred emblem that crowns a nation's 
life. 
The prize of hope's fruition of sacrifice and tears, 
In danger drooped its colors ; there was need to 
save the life. 

Again the call resounded throughout the stricken 
land 
For defenders of Old Glory. Responsive to the 
sound. 
The sons of men who battled, that liberty might 
stand, 
Left plow within the furrow and seedlings in the 
ground. 

On the hillside sleeps the warrior, a gray stone marks 
the spot, 
Moss-grown and stained with ages, a relic of the 
past. 

153 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

On the plain, away down yonder, no gallant deed 
forgot. 
Sweetly rests the flag defender, — his memory will 
last. 

The pine trees whisper softly and bid the soldier 
sleep, 
The starry dome of heaven, the roof that shelters 
him. 
The oak trees* spreading branches, brave sentinels, 
will keep 
The vigils of the sleeper through ages faint and 
dim. 

The birds of joyous springtime will sing their songs 
of mirth, 
The buds will burst their fetters and clothe the 
naked trees. 
The grasses of the meadow, the gifts of mother 
earth. 
Will wave in rhythmic motion, caressed by every 
breeze. 

The fruit will follow blossom and ripen as of 
yore. 
The harvest follow seeding 'neath the autumn's 
golden sun. 
The chilling frosts of winter will wither as be- 
fore, 
The dawning follow darkness and mark the day 
begun. 

154 



ANNIVERSARY POEM 

Peace reigns within our border and plenty is our 
store. 
No cloud-lines mar the future, time softens all the 
past. 
We have met to clothe with honor the heroes gone 
before, 
And recall their deeds of valor, — such deeds for- 
ever last. 

To claim this noble kinship is the heritage by blood 
Of the living sons of freemen who battled for the 
right. 
A greeting, men of Lincoln, you stand where patri- 
ots stood. 
This is your honored birthday, midway the cen- 
tury's flight. 



ANTHEM 

GOD OF OUR FATHERS 
RuDYARD Kipling 

God of our fathers, known of old, 
Lord of our far-flung battle line, 
Beneath whose awful hand we hold 
Dominion over palm and pine. 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. 
Lest we forget, lest we forget. 

The tumult and the shouting dies. 
The captains and the kings depart : 
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice. 
An humble and a contrite heart. 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. 
Lest we forget, lest we forget. 

Far called our navies melt away, 
On dune and headland sinks the fire; 
Lo ! all our pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre ; 
Judge of the nations, spare us yet, 
Lest we forget, lest we forget. 

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, 
156 



ANTHEM 

Such boasting as the Gentiles use, 
Or lesser breeds without the Law, 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget, lest we forget. 

For heathen heart that puts her trust 
In reeking tube and iron shard, 
All valiant dust that builds on dust, 
And guarding calls not Thee to guard. 
For frantic boast and foolish word. 
Thy mercy on Thy people. Lord ! 



THE BANQUET 



I 



THE BANQUET 

ADDRESS OF MOORFIELD STOREY, ESQ. 

We are met to celebrate the one hundred and fifti- 
eth birthday of this pleasant town, and are glad to 
welcome at our table so many of our friends. 

It has been, I confess, somewhat painful to be met 
at the very threshold of our celebration by the sugges- 
tion, made doubtless by persons jealous of our venera- 
ble age, or who perhaps were not invited to our feast, 
that we do not know our own birthday, and that Lin- 
coln was really born on April 19th and not on April 
23d. Our ancestors, however, were a long-headed race, 
and having the right denied to us as individuals of 
choosing their own birthday, they selected the 23d, and 
for the best of reasons. They foresaw that our neigh- 
bors. Concord and Lexington, would want the 19th for 
purposes of their own, and they decided wisely that 
the burden would be too heavy for one day, if it were 
at once the birthday of a town like Lincoln and of a 
new nation like the United States, and therefore they 
postponed the birth of Lincoln till the !23d, and made 
due entry of the fact upon the records of the town, our 
family Bible. Hence Lincoln has its own day, and in 
true neighborly spirit leaves Lexington and Concord 
to discuss which owns the 19th, without pressing its 
own much older claim. 

161 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

I have felt that the honor of presiding at this din- 
ner should have been given to some one older than 
I, for though appearances are against me, and might 
mislead the unthinking, I am really among the young- 
est citizens of Lincoln. As such I am only five years 
old, and wholly unable to imagine how one feels at 
one hundred and fifty. Indeed, as I rose to address 
you, I could not help thinking of the old and excel- 
lent rule so often impressed upon us all, that children 
should be seen rather than heard. But though I have 
lived among you so short a time, I must admit that 
elsewhere I am placed among the grandsires, and it 
is more than forty years since I first learned to know 
and love Lincoln. I was then a boy in college, and 
spent many a holiday in walking to Concord over the 
turnpike or the Trapelp Road, and often in later years 
when tired I have rested myself by driving over the 
same peaceful ways. 

Lincoln is the centre of a region which has changed 
little in half a century. It still preserves the simplicity, 
the dignity, the character of the old Middlesex County, 
of which Massachusetts has always been so proud, and 
we who dwell here should congratulate ourselves that, 
while we are near enough to get the benefits, we have 
escaped the contamination of a great city. The simple 
homelike houses of this old New England town are 
not called upon to blush by neighbors painted and 
decorated in the fantastic fashions with which men 
slander the fair name of Queen Anne. The specula- 
tive builder has not laid out our fields in lots, cut down 
our trees, or disfigured our roads with boxes of apart- 

162 



I 



THE BANQUET 

ments, those poor apologies for homes. Men dwell in 
the houses in which their fathers dwelt, succeed to the 
places of their fathers in the community, take up their 
burdens when they lay them down, and thus give to 
our society a stability which is unhappily too rare in 
our rapidly shifting American life where, in the words 
of Lowell, " Time obliterates the labor and often the 
names of yesterday." Here we know that from the 
same doors have come forth for generations the same 
qualities, the same contributions to the life of the 
town, the same family characteristics. The dwellers 
in the homes of their fathers, the sons of these honor- 
able families, inherit something which is not known 
among the changing population of a city or its sub- 
urbs : something which adds a value, a dignity, a 
serenity to life which nothing can replace. They have 
a stake in the community of priceless value to the 
public weal. It is in towns like this that the high 
traditions of New England are preserved, that the 
spirit of ordered freedom is left alive. 

One by one these landmarks of the days and the 
life which made Massachusetts what she is, are over- 
whelmed by the crowd of strangers who follow the 
convenient lines of modern transportation and lead 
the frivolous, pleasure-seeking lives that are so much 
desired in our country to-day. Let us while we may 
preserve for Lincoln her unique position among the 
neighbors of a great city, that our children may know 
what manner of life was led by those who laid the 
foundations of our state, and in a New England town- 
meeting may learn the principles of free government. 

163 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

But I am violating the sound rule which I have 
quoted, and setting a bad example to those whom 
you are hoping to hear, by talking too long. 

Our first thought on our birthday should be of 
our mother, and we as pious children of Massa- 
chusetts naturally turn to her who gave us birth 
one hundred and fifty years ago. I hope she will 
give us her blessing now through the lips of her 
young but eminent son, whom she has set over all 
her other children. He needs no introduction, and 
so I may only with great pleasure present to you 
his Excellency, Governor Bates. 



REMARKS BY GOVERNOR JOHN L. BATES 

Mr. Toastmaster and Fellow Citizens : The 
thing which most impresses one coming from the 
great city that is so near, is to find how compara- 
tively untouched this town is by the encroachments 
of modern activities. Not that your people lack 
enterprise, push, and energy, but that it has been 
exhibited at a distance, and they have kept this place 
free from business, from manufactures, from trade, 
kept it in the condition that it has been for one hun- 
dred and fifty years, — a retreat, beautiful as nature 
can make it, and uninjured by man. In its physical 
aspect it thus presents a picture of the Common- 
wealth as it was a century and a half ago, or as it was 
on that first Patriot's Day, the anniversary of which we 
have so recently celebrated, the 19th of April, 1775. 

164 



The Hoar House 

Residence of Mr. Edward W. Pope 

(p. 225) 



THE BANQUET 

What has this community to celebrate on this its 
one hundred and fiftieth natal day? Communities 
celebrate great progress, and they celebrate great 
deeds. I find that a large increase of population, 
the multiplication of building upon building, the 
gathering to a common centre of mill and forge 
and manufactory, enormous strides in business, and 
the accumulation of wealth, are often spoken of by 
communities in a way that indicates their pride in 
such things. But Lincoln has not largely increased 
in population. It is one of the very few towns 
within our Commonwealth that has no manufactures 
whatever within its precincts. Here there are no 
busy marts for barter or for trade, and here, while 
there is no indication of want on the part of any of 
your citizens, there certainly have not been large ac- 
cumulations of wealth, except as such accumulations 
have been brought here by those who, attracted by 
the beauty of your hills, have come to dwell among 
you. But in great deeds and in manner of living, 
and in the achievements of self-government, you 
have all to celebrate that any ideal community can 
celebrate. In peace you have maintained the prin- 
ciples of self-government, and ruled yourselves 
wisely, and with credit taken part in the larger de- 
liberations of the representative bodies of the state 
and nation. From your people, and from those who 
look back to Lincoln as the place of their ancestry, 
have come many of the leaders in the world of 
thought, and in the national life. When war has 
sounded its alarm, your citizens have not been back- 

165 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

ward. They have given more than the quota as- 
signed to them in every struggle in which the nation 
has participated. Hired men among them ? Yes, 
there may have been, but not so with the majority. 
Towns that have to hire men do not send beyond 
their quota to the fields of battle. The 1 9th of April, 
1775, ^^^ ^ ^^y when the affairs of the people of this 
land had reached a crisis. The company of minute- 
men from Lincoln was ready at Concord Bridge 
when the time came for action ; and as the liberties 
of America were born in the fortitude of the men 
who resisted the British invasion on that morning, 
a resistance in which Lincoln had a noble and effec- 
tive part, so is the name of Lincoln to be associated 
with those of Concord and Lexington by a grateful 
people. 

So to-day we celebrate one hundred and fifty years 
of independent thought, one hundred and fifty years 
of peaceful living, one hundred and fifty years of 
patriotic service, one hundred and fifty years of 
contented life. This town has in the life of its 
citizens shown that Pope was wrong when he wrote 
that 

** Man never is, but always to be, blessed." 

Here in the valleys and on the slopes of the hills 
have been the homes of contented, happy people. 
Here has been taught the lesson that happiness is 
not to be found in busy strife, or in ambitious pur- 
suits, but in the satisfaction that comes from simple 
living in contact with nature, seeking to have the 

166 



THE BANQUET 

genuine rather than the artificial, the real rather than 
the unreal. 

So on this day perhaps there is no better lesson 
than that which comes from the contemplation of 
the virtues of the people who redeemed this land 
from a wilderness and made it their abode. As one 
who brings out the old furniture from the attic or 
the cellar or the loft of the barn, and brushes off the 
dust and the mould, is impressed by the beauty of 
the old design, by its grace and character, so should 
we on such occasions as these study the rugged 
virtues of the fathers of old and grow stronger, 
better, and wiser as we contemplate that patriotism 
that never failed, that courage that was never daunted, 
that simple faith that was never staggered, and that 
sweet contentment of mind that caused their lives 
to flow on " like the rivers through the woodlands 
darkened by the shadows of earth, but reflecting the 
image of heaven." 

Mr. Storey. — We are greatly indebted to our 
townsman, Mr. Adams, for the admirable address to 
which we have listened to-day. It will be remem- 
bered as a permanent contribution to the annals of 
the town, and in the name of all its inhabitants 
present and to come I am glad to give him our 
warmest thanks. I am sure that this very fresh ex- 
perience of his speech will only make you anxious 
to hear from him again, and I therefore ask him if 
he will not add to our obligations by a few words 
now. 

167 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

(By Mr. Adams's request his remarks at the 
Banquet are not printed in the Proceedings, as he 
felt he had occupied sufficient space by his speech in 
the afternoon.) 

Mr. Storey. — I came among you as a farmer, 
anxious to try my hand at a new enterprise, and in- 
spired by the high ideal which my friend Mr. Brooks 
set before me at my first town-meeting when he said, 
" One farmer is worth more than six lawyers." I have 
had much experience since then, and have learned 
how thorny is the path which one, who has had the 
misfortune to be bred a lawyer, must tread before 
he becomes a really triumphant farmer. Even the 
assessors mocked my efforts when they refused to 
assess my land as a farm, though I assured them 
that I was conscientiously doing my best to make a 
farm of it, and that I thought my failure to make any 
money by it was punishment enough without their 
fining me besides. 

It is natural, therefore, that I should respect the 
men who succeed where I have failed, and I had not 
been here long before the contrast between my pre- 
carious asparagus bed and the acres of asparagus 
on Mr.Baker's farm excited my admiration. I hope 
Mr. Baker will tell me and the Governor — for I 
fancy we are the poorest farmers here — something 
about farming, or perhaps better give us some re- 
miniscences of the farming town in which his family 
has so long held an honorable place. 

i68 



THE BANQUET 



REMARKS OF MR. GEORGE M. BAKER 

Mr. President: I am proud to represent the 
Baker name here. 

John Baker and Elizabeth his wife came from Old 
England to New England with six children and 
settled in Concord, since then called the south- 
western part of Lincoln, near Baker Bridge railroad 
station. They had four children born in what is now 
Lincoln. They came about 1729. 

Jacob, one of the sons born in England in 1722, 
married Grace Billings, born across the road oppo- 
site my place, now owned by C. F. Adams. The 
cellar where the house stood is now to be seen. The 
Billings family had large holdings of land. Jacob built 
the old Baker house now owned by Mr. Adams. 
They had a large family, three sons of which, Jacob, 
Nathaniel, and Amos, settled in Lincoln. 

Jacob, born 1744, settled on the farm now owned 
by Major Higginson. Nathaniel, born 1746 (my 
grandfather), and Amos, born 1756 (grandfather of 
James E. Baker ), both settled on the old Baker farm. 
One occupied the east end of the house, the other 
the west end. Each kept a horse, cows, and an ox ; 
they put the oxen together and worked them when 
they needed them. 

They did their work together, dividing the pro- 
ducts when harvested ; mowing and raking their hay, 
then dividing in the field and carrying to the separate 
barns. They brought the wood to the door, prepared 

169 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

it for the fire, and their wives divided it. They carried 
on the farm together till my grandfather was eighty 
years old. Both had good families of children. Who 
will say they did not live happy and profitable lives ? 
I have been told by their descendants that they never 
had a word of contention. Their large families did 
not make them less happy, a lesson for this genera- 
tion. When my grandfather was eighty, he sold out 
to James, a son of Amos, the father of the present 
James E. 

Nathaniel left three daughters and a son — Jacob, 
my father. He bought and settled on the farm 
now occupied by myself and Walter F. and family. 
He came here at eighty and died at ninety-two. He 
awoke as usual and said he would not "get up just 
yet." When some one went to his room soon 
after, it was found that he had passed away in sleep. 
I was about twelve years old when he died. I was 
attached to him and he to me. He was blind several 
years. I read to him from the Bible. I do not re- 
member a single cross word from him. 

Jacob, my father, was killed at the railroad cross- 
ing below Lincoln station, at the age of seventy-two. 
He had four daughters and a son ; my sisters were 
all older than myself, and three of them are still 
living. 

There are left myself, my son W. F., and his two 
sons to represent one branch of the Baker name. 

Now if there is time I would like to refer to some 
of the characteristics of our ancestors as I remember 
them: 

170 



THE BANQUET 

I St. They were temperate in food, drink, and 
habits. 

2d. They were industrious. 

3d. They were a frugal people, so they had few 
paupers to support. 

4th. They were modest, but jealous of their 
rights, as when their soil was invaded by a foreign 
foe. 

5th. They were inclined to mind their own busi- 
ness. My father took me with him when a small 
boy to a neighbor's to purchase some grass. While 
he and the neighbor were discussing the trade, a 
stranger to my father volunteered his services to the 
neighbor. My father looked him in the face and '' 
said, " Mister, I have got a good living by mind- 
ing my own business." I need not say the stranger 
retired. I got a lesson I never forgot. 

6th. They supported good roads. There were two 
thoroughfares through the length of the town over 
which the stages ran, and all the freight going north 
was teamed over these two roads, which was a great 
tax to the town till the Fitchburg Railroad was built. 

7th. They supported good schools that stood high 
among the schools of the State ; and although kept 
in little modest houses and taught mostly by gradu- 
ates of these schools, they turned out men and wo- 
men who were good citizens here, and those who 
went away were successful, some of them returning 
to spend their last days in their old town and mak- 
ing the town handsome presents. 

8th. They elected faithful servants to care for 
171 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

public affairs. The office sought the man and not 
the man the office. They had no defaulters. 

9th. They were a law-abiding community ; they 
never supported a law office. 

loth. They were a Sabbath-keeping people. 

nth. Class distinction and gossip have not been 
nurtured among us. These are the bane of society, 
like rust on metals or vermin on vegetation, de- 
stroying the peace and happiness of society. 

By following these traits I think we have been a 
peaceful, prosperous, and happy people. May we 
continue in them ! Happiness is the one desire of 
every human being, but sought in many ways. Be 
true and honest to self and others is the best way to 
secure it. The poet says, " Love God, love truth, 
love virtue, and be happy." 

And now I think I hear the builders of this little 
republic unite in saying, " We are proud and happy 
that we are stones in the building. We earnestly 
hope that no stones that enter into the structure will 
vaunt themselves above us the foundation stones ; 
we are all happy in the part we played. No magic 
tool was used to fit us for our places; we were fitted 
for our work by our inheritance, we were prepared 
in the * meeting-house ' and the ' little red school- 
house.' Our motto is * Truth.' " 

Mr. Storey. — There are few if any names that 
have been associated longer with Lincoln than that 
of Flint, and no man of New England blood can con- 
template the homestead with the venerable elm, that 

172 



THE BANQUET 

has sheltered so many generations, without a feeling 
of admiration and keen sympathy for the sturdy stock 
that has for so many years taken an honorable part 
in the life of this town. I hope Mr. Francis Flint will 
say a few words as its representative. 



REMARKS BY MR. FRANCIS FLINT 

Mr. President : I rise with much diffidence to 
speak of my ancestry and town, yet I am proud of 
both. We trace our family lineage back to Thomas 
Flint, who came over from Matlock, in Derbyshire, 
England, about 1636. We have made some inquiries 
there with the hope of tracing our genealogy farther 
back, but without success. Possibly it may be just 
as well, for I once heard my father say that he had 
never heard of a Flint's being hanged. Matlock is 
now one of the fine watering-places in Old England, 
and a relative who recently visited that region seemed 
at a loss to understand what could have induced 
" Father Thomas " to leave such a beautiful spot, 
to come to this howling wilderness. I suppose the 
simple answer would be. He was a Puritan. Soon 
after his arrival we find him on Governor Winthrop's 
Council. Later he moved to Concord, where he died 
about 1653. His will was the first one recorded in 
the Middlesex County Records at Cambridge. His 
son secured a large tract of land, over seven hundred 
acres, including Sandy or Flint Pond. This tract 
doubtless included Lincoln Centre and the present 

173 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Flint homestead, which, / thinks has never passed 
out of the family name during these two hundred and 
fifty years. 

If you ask what of the Flints on that memorable 
day, the 19th of April, 1775, ^ simply say the chron- 
icles of the family inform us that my grandfather 
Ephraim, then about thirty years old, shouldered his 
musket, and as one of the results captured a British 
soldier at Lexington, and took him home with him, 
where he worked some time on the farm of his captor 
peacefully. Later, during the War of 18 12, General 
James Miller achieved considerable renown at the 
Battle of Lundy's Lane on the Canadian frontier. 
When his superior asked him if he could capture a 
redoubt, he answered, " I '11 try, sir," and accom- 
plished it. He married my father's sister. These 
are our military achievements. 

In the records I find very little desire for political 
honors or office. Evidently the fact that " Father 
Thomas " was on Governor Winthrop's Council 
brought sufficient glory to several generations. I 
quieted my conscience concerning my county and 
city duties by serving one term on the jury at court, 
and one term on the school committee of the city 
of Cambridge. In this hurried sketch I have not 
touched upon the Bemis side of our ancestry, partly 
because, while they were of Puritan stock, their an- 
cestor coming to Watertown in 1640, they were not 
connected with this town until long afterwards. Of 
my Uncle George F. Bemis I need not speak in 
this building or to this company. Of my mother I 

174 



THE BANQUET 

simply say, she was one of the choicest specimens 
of lovely Christian motherhood this town has pro- 
duced, and that is saying a good deal. Of the pass- 
ing generation, it is perhaps needless for me to speak 
in this presence. Of the six children that grew up, 
only three remain, and we have all passed the allotted 
term of threescore years and ten. We were required 
to attend church and Sunday-school regularly, and 
I am glad of it. It established a foundation on which 
after life was more safely builded. 

Regarding the town, it is certainly a good thing for 
children to have a pride and interest in the place of 
their birth. I can hardly remember the time when 
we were not taught that Lincoln was a fine town. It 
was occasionally called in my boyhood Niptown to 
belittle it. But on a public occasion one of our witty 
young men translated that word to the satisfaction 
of us all, giving as a toast " Niptown, nipped off 
the best end of three or four other towns." 

As a boy I was proud of our school at the Centre. 
I remember one fine teacher from Harvard College. 
He taught us arithmetic, algebra, geometry, only 
stopping at trigonometry in mathematics, had the 
boys declaim periodically, and closed the term with 
an exhibition of orations and dialogues in our town- 
hall to a crowded house. How many district schools 
in the country at that time could show such a 
record ? 

In my class in mathematics there were five very 
bright girls and one boy, and though it was my 
favorite study, yet I had to work hard to keep in 

175 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

sight of them ; and you may remember, some of you 
younger men, that at that susceptible age the sight is 
of much account. Four of those five girls have passed 
on. Some of them married and left children that are 
an honor to your town. 

Now a word of your future. Possibly you will 
ere long bring back the High School and gather 
more of your children into it, even if it raises your 
tax rate a fraction of a dollar from |8 or ^9 per thou- 
sand toward the $ij or ^18 per thousand that we 
have to pay in Cambridge. 

As to temperance, seemingly you are fairly safe 
if the late reports from your town are true — safer 
perhaps than in my early boyhood, when Medford 
rum and molasses was the favorite tonic with some 
of the help. 

Your Board of Selectmen should be comparatively 
safe while you have a Flint on it, for he is of good 
old Whig descent, and you, Mr. President, are famil- 
iar with that product. 

Mr. Storey. — As I admired Mr. Baker's aspara- 
gus, so when we had our agricultural fair a year or 
two ago I admired Mr. Farrar's apples, which I could 
not help comparing with my own inferior fruit. Nor 
was I encouraged when he told me that my farm 
used to be the best fruit farm in the county. Degen- 
eracy is not a thing to be proud of. No Lincoln fes- 
tival would be complete without a good many Farrars, 
and I am sure that Mr. E. R. Farrar will give us 
some reminiscences that will interest us all. 

176 



THE BANQUET 



REMARKS BY MR. EDWARD R. FARRAR 

Mr. Toastmaster : There have been many 
changes in one hundred and fifty years. My great- 
grandfather was tithing-man in Lincoln, and it was 
one of his duties to stop all passers-by on the Sab- 
bath, and if they were not going for the minister or 
the doctor, they were turned back. We may not 
choose to follow all their ideas. They served their 
God the best they knew, and to my mind that was 
what gave strength to the Puritan character. If we 
wish to keep up the credit of the New England 
character, we must see to it that we do not go to the 
other extreme, and become too careless in the ser- 
vice of our Lord, or in the keeping of his Sabbath. 

I feel honored that my ancestors had a part in the 
settlement of the town, and in the management of 
its affairs, and in obtaining the independence of our 
country. 

My wish is that the future of this town may be 
such that it will be an honor to the generations that 
are to follow. 

Mr. Storey. — The town of Lincoln, like every 
other Massachusetts town, has owed much to the 
ministers who have lived their lives here, and without 
large salaries or the fame which comes to those who 
preach in great cities have with single-hearted devo- 
tion given themselves to the work which here as 
everywhere has waited for their hands. Among them 

177 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

all there has been no one more worthy of the sincere 
respect and affection with which we regard him than 
Mr. Bradley, who I hope will speak to us. 



REMARKS BY REVEREND EDWARD E. 
BRADLEY 

Mr. Toastmaster and Friends: I want to add 
my word of appreciation to those already spoken 
for the oration of the afternoon. Until one has tried 
his hand at it, he cannot appreciate how great a 
task it is to reconstruct the past out of such scanty 
materials as are available for our history. Such an 
address as this represents not simply the special 
preparation made for this occasion, but years of labor 
devoted to similar investigations in other localities. 

Mr. Adams has given us a clear picture of the 
economic side of the life of our town, and I know of 
no facts that contradict those that he has brought 
before us. But he has not told us the whole story. 
There is a good deal more that might be said and 
that ought to be said for the social and the spiritual 
side of the life of those early days. I had occasion a 
few years since to examine the records of the church, 
and I read all the documents that I could find bear- 
ing on its history both in its own records and in 
other writings ; and I found there facts that would 
go far to relieve the monotonous and commonplace 
character of the life of the town in its early days as 
it was set before us this afternoon. I found there 

178 



Residence of Mr. Julius E. Eveleth 



THE BANQUET 

the records of the labors of the six ministers of the 
church, all of them equipped with the best learning 
of the time, and faithful in the discharge of their 
office ; while the fact that there were but six minis- 
ters here during a period of one hundred and forty- 
five years speaks much for the character of their 
ministry as well as for the character of the people. 
Such roads as there were then, whether highways or 
cart-paths, served to bring the people to church on 
the Sabbath from the outskirts of the town ; and if 
the worship of the Sabbath was the principal occa- 
sion for bringing the people together, it was one that 
was faithfully and profitably improved. 

We were reminded in the anniversary ode that was 
read this afternoon, and also in the Governor's re- 
marks this evening, of the farmer patriots of our early 
history, the minute-men who were ready to take up 
arms and go forth at a moment's notice to defend 
their homes. They were men of sturdy character 
and unflinching courage ; we were brought up to 
venerate them, and I hope the day is far distant when 
we shall cease to do so. The spirit and the manly 
bearing of the minute-man have been finely pre- 
served for us in bronze in the statue at the bridge 
in Concord and in the, if possible, more virile fig- 
ure of Captain Parker in Lexington. But I do not 
hesitate to say that we in Lincoln have seen a finer 
representation of the spirit of the minute-man than 
either Mr. French or Mr. Kitson has given us, for we 
have seen it in life, in flesh and blood. I believe that 
you will agree with me when I say that the spirit of 

179 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

the minute-man has been reproduced in a remarkable 
degree in the life of one whom we ourselves have 
known, the lamented James Farrar, who died just 
ten years ago the seventeenth day of next month. 

Most of us who are here to-night remember well 
the situation of our town ten years ago, and the feel- 
ing of uneasiness that was abroad because of the 
midnight visits of a burglar. Many of our homes 
had been visited by him, and the rest of us felt that 
our turn might come at any time. It was not a very 
pleasant frame of mind to be in. Men were anxious, 
women were timid. It was to bring such a condition 
of things to an end that James Farrar sacrificed his 
life. I never could reconcile myself to his going 
unarmed in pursuit of a man who, he might have 
known, was armed and prepared to kill. But bar- 
ring that, no one can admire too highly the fidelity 
and the courage shown by him in seeking to bring 
this man to justice. As Attorney-General Knowlton 
said at the time, " Never bullet sped to cleaner, 
braver, truer heart." He was a man of as near spot- 
less character as it is our fortune often to see. He 
took an active part in the life of the town, both as a 
citizen and as a public official. He was a leader in 
his own neighborhood in all matters, whether reli- 
gious, social, or athletic. Yet at all times and in all 
places he kept himself unspotted from the world. I 
do not desire, I do not need to enlarge upon his 
virtues ; I desire but to recall him to your minds 
at this time, and to pay my tribute of respect and 
affection to his memory. He has gone from us, 

1 80 



THE BANQUET 

but he belongs still to us ; for his name is upon 
the roll of those who have given their lives for the 
town. 

Mr. Storey. — For the first time in ninety years 
Concord has celebrated her anniversary this week 
without the aid that she has learned to expect from 
the family of Hoar. The sudden and premature 
death of Samuel Hoar, which has saddened the whole 
town of Concord and left a heartache in the breast 
of many a friend outside, has robbed us of two guests, 
for we had hoped that both he and his uncle might 
come to speak for the ancient line which was cradled 
in this town. Let us assure our senator, whose life 
has lately been clouded by great affliction which he 
might well have hoped to be spared, that the citizens 
of this town have not forgotten him or his family, and 
that they feel the warmest sympathy for them all. 

It is well at least once in one hundred and fifty 
years that our vanity should be chastened by hear- 
ing the candid opinion of some impartial neighbor. 
There was a time when Lincoln would have found 
it hard to discover such a critic, since the neighbor- 
ing towns, out of whose flesh she was carved, did not 
regard the process with entire approval, and town 
division has never been popular since. I hope, how- 
ever, that time has healed the wound and that I 
may safely run the risk of asking a word from Con- 
cord, for whom surely no one has a better right to 
speak than one whose name is forever associated 
with it, my friend Mr. Emerson. 

i8i 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 



REMARKS BY DR. EDWARD WALDO 
EMERSON 

Mr. Chairman, Friends and Neighbors: I 
have been asked to answer for Concord here to-night, 
and I do not feel abashed, for am I not still at 
home? Is not this a part of Old Concord ? It surely 
was so in its beginnings and thereafter for one hun- 
dred and nine years ; then, for ten years. Concord's 
second precinct before the final separation, simply for 
convenience' sake. 

These dwellers on the eastern hills of Old Con- 
cord apparently always showed a marked independ- 
ence. Their elevation seems to have made them 
overlook trifles such as the people in the neighboring 
plain minded, for in 1751 the church in Lincoln, but 
newly established, voted to admit all persons who 
may be dismissed from the church at Concord. I 
have always felt glad to know that this asylum was 
open in case of need. This same independence of 
thought — upward tendency, shall I say? — influ- 
enced your people in things physical, for later they 
held that water could better, or had better, run 
uphill. 

But however, on common days, a healthy independ- 
ence has held the mother and daughter towns apart, 
they have never forgotten their blood relationship in 
time of trouble. We know that our common ances- 
tors were comrades in the defence of eastern Mas- 
sachusetts in King Philip's War, and in the next 

182 



THE BANQUET 

century fought together against the French and 
Indians. On the great Nineteenth of April blood 
proved thicker than water, when our first help in 
dire extremity came from Lincoln. Your Captain 
Eleazer Brooks, wisely brave, gave timely counsel 
when some, more brave than experienced, urged that 
the handful of minute-men should abide the issue 
of fight with eight hundred regulars on the Common, 
— which could only have resulted in another massa- 
cre like that in Lexington, — and thus influenced 
the happy outcome of the day by causing the with- 
drawal of the Provincial force to Buttrick's Hill, to 
wait the arrival of an adequate force. This was a 
service of vital importance. 

In the War of the Rebellion three Lincoln men 
went in Captain Prescott's company in April, 1861, 
four in Captain Barrett's company of the 47th Regi- 
ment, M. V. M., five more were furnished by this 
town to the three years' companies of Captains Pres- 
cott and Bowers of the- 3 2d Regiment. During the 
last fifteen years of the past century the " Concord 
Artillery," then Company I, 6th Regiment, M. V. 
M., had your young men in its ranks, and when the 
war with Spain broke out you furnished us a good 
officer and three men.' Thus, in five wars, the youth 
of these hills have done service shoulder to shoulder 
with their neighbors of the plain. 

Possibly in this connection I ought to recognize 
the services of a small but select body of cavalry, in 

' A fifth man from the town enlisted in the U. S. Volunteer Bat- 
talion of Engineers. 

183 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

uniform now green, now red, who, moved by know- 
ledge which we have not of some secret foe which 
infests our borders — what he is lilce we can't guess, 
but he leaves a scent of anise or paregoric — have 
lately ridden into Concord to hunt him, at some dan- 
ger to their lives and limbs. 

1 have spoken of Lincoln's sharing with Concord 
the perils of war, but the old town owes much to her in 
peace. I have told what one of your Brooks family 
did for us on a day of battle, but through the nine- 
teenth century that name did honor to Concord in the 
persons of a father and son, respected and loved, — 
the Squire and the Judge. The son, the grandsons, 
and the great-grandsons of your Samuel Hoar of the 
days of the Revolution have been our strength and 
our pride for nearly a hundred years. The race of 
Wheeler has brought up the average of good citizen- 
ship in both towns, and fortunately is not failing in 
the land. Though the Farrars mainly hold by Lin- 
coln, they worship in Concord, and one of that name 
dwells among us, and quietly puts us to bed when 
our days' works are all done. Let me pay a tribute in 
passing to some Lincoln men who are gone : to the 
brave young man who, losing his life, freed us from 
midnight danger and loss; to my old schoolmate, 
Dr. George Tarbell, a good doctor and devoted ser- 
vant of good causes ; to the memory of your scholar, 
Stearns Wheeler, from whose young promise my father 
and his friend Henry Thoreau hoped so much. 

May I lay claim to personal relation with Lincoln, 
for I lived here through two pleasant summers ? I 

184 



THE BANQUET 

say here^ but part of the house was in Lincoln and part 
in Wayland ; the line ran through the dining-table. 
So in case of emergency I could have fled from your 
jurisdiction to its other side. Your farmer constable, 
Mr. Sam Farrar, called, but in his kindness of heart 
kept his weapons of office concealed, and talked 
pleasantly of flowers. 

Now I believe you will allow me to say a word, at 
the beginning of a new chapter of Lincoln's life, and 
I believe it will be taken kindly from a neighbor, for 
it is on a subject which has come very near to us both; 
but Concord has had to deal with it for a quarter of 
a century, and you only for a few years. 

Both towns were, until lately, almost purely agri- 
cultural, and their people within my recollection used 
to lead the simple lives such as Mr. Baker has de- 
scribed, mainly within their own borders, though each 
had one or more ministers, doctors and lawyers and a 
few traders, and the farmers went to the city with their 
produce. Now the railroad and the crowding of 
the cities has changed that. Both of our towns are 
becoming more and more suburban. 

Naturally when new names and new ways come 
into old towns there is a temporary dislocation felt by 
both parties. The old residents who value and con- 
tinue the ways and standards of their ancestors may 
be anxious and disturbed. The newcomers, brought 
up under different conditions, may not be quite pre- 
pared to live on old-time country principles. We 
felt this in our town, as doubtless you do here. Now 
because we went through all this, — as you are doing 

185 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

now, — and seem to be coming through pretty well, 
I trust to your good nature to let me say a few words 
to the new and the old elements : first, to the old 
stock. We found that the new infusion, coming in, 
as it did gradually enough to be assimilated, did us 
good. In loyal pride in the town, and in zealous 
and unpaid service of her interests, many of the new- 
comers have vied with the best of the old leaders. 
More than that, they have waked us up and con- 
tributed good ideas and methods. Most of them have 
honored the best standards of the old town, yet these 
must grow and broaden with that growth. So give 
the newcomers a welcome and a chance. 

Now to the new settlers may I say. Do not come 
to Lincoln to enjoy its quiet, its air, and its scenery, 
and lead your lives apart from it. Live in a simple 
country town in simple country ways, and don't spoil 
the place by enhancing class distinctions and living 
in a style which may make your neighbors uncom- 
fortable. There are many wholesome lessons to be 
learned from a fine independent old New England 
village, — to simplify life and so have more time for 
real living, to serve yourselves more, and to come 
into sound and helpful touch with town affairs. 
Learn the sweetness of good neighborhood. 

Ten years ago I visited the beautiful Lincoln 
which, high on its hill, looks over the lowlands on 
England's eastern coast. The high towers of the 
Cathedral have many grotesques carved in stone by 
the old monks, and from one of them came the 
proverb " The Devil looks over Lincoln." But we 

i86 



THE BANQUET 

here will believe that, in his mischievous walks on 
earth, the Devil overlooks Lincoln. 

Mr. Storey. — As a young citizen I feel the need 
of support from men approaching my own age, and 
I shall therefore ask my senior by some years, the 
Rev. Dr. DeNormandie, to tell us how he has suc- 
ceeded as a Lincoln farmer, and why it is that incu- 
bators select the most inconvenient moments to ex- 
plode. When I think how suddenly one's hopes are 
blighted by such a calamity, I can think of nothing 
more closely approaching the reaction than the expe- 
rience of the man who was asked why his legs were 
bowed and replied, " I went up in a balloon and 
walked back." 



REMARKS BY 
REV. JAMES DeNORMANDIE, D. D. 

Mr. President: I am much gratified to be re- 
garded as enough of a citizen of Lincoln to be in- 
vited to this interesting anniversary, and to be asked 
to say a word at this banquet. 

Some strange fatality has steadily beset my en- 
deavor to live a part of the year among you, but I 
trust year by year that whatever has prevented may 
be removed, and that before long the time may 
come when I can really be one of your townsmen. 

I am not sure, sir, that I have in my nature any 
spirit of envy or jealousy. I am not sure that I know 

187 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

of any one whose lot I envy. I envy no man his 
wealth. I envy no man his public position. I might 
perhaps at times have a passing wish that I might 
have the intellectual gifts of some to whom I have 
listened ; that I might have been the discoverer or 
inventor of some helpful thing for humanity ; that I 
might, for example, have the gift of our distinguished 
historian to-day, to take the dry facts of a century 
and a half, and weave them into such an attractive 
form, uniting the wisdom of a statesman to the faith 
of a prophet. I might be forgiven, perhaps, if I had 
just a passing shadow of disappointment that he 
should have so much larger a congregation than 
we ministers do when we preach in the Lincoln 
churches, or for indulging in the reflection that if 
Mr. Adams were now announced to speak to-mor- 
row, he might have even a larger congregation than 
to-day. I might have a momentary feeling of envy 
in thinking of all the strong words that you, sir, have 
uttered in defence of the lofty ideals of our republic. 
But I believe I am without envy — and yet, if I 
had the spirit, there are two classes I can think of 
toward whom I might show it. One is the persons 
who can, without haste, or anxiety, or pressure, or 
nervousness, quietly get up on Sunday morning and 
go to church. That is something of which we min- 
isters know nothing. If I ever have an opportunity 
to worship out of the pulpit, I feel how helpful, 
how delightful it is, and wonder every one does not 
long to go to church. It is only when I am in the 
pulpit that I sometimes wonder why so many go. 

i88 



THE BANaUET 

The other is the persons who can escape from the 
confusion of the great city's Hfe to the charms of a 
life in the country. Think of it : to be aroused every 
morning by five or six o'clock by the shouts or bells 
of the hucksters which cease not until ten at 
night; of" fresh mackerel," which have known no- 
thing of their native element for the last fortnight ; 
of " fresh vegetables," which have been a week on 
the way from the South, and another week on their 
slow journey through all the dirty and dusty streets 
of the city ; of the three grades of eggs so plainly 
advertised at all the grocery stores — " strictly fresh 
eggs," " fresh eggs," and " eggs " — and if the first 
means any eggs laid within the present year, what 
must the last be? Really, sir, I think that most of 
the inhabitants of the city have lost the power to dis- 
tinguish what anything fresh means. And then to 
think of escaping from all these — from the dust and 
smells, and tumult and selfishness, and harshness and 
unsympathizing crowd — to the quiet restfulness 
and sweet odors of our Lincoln air and our Lincoln 
scenes, the voices of our Lincoln birds, the silence of 
our woods, the promise of our fruitful fields, is like en- 
tering into the joy and peace of the Island of the Blest. 
I always like to recall the correspondence between 
Adams and JeflFerson in the closing year of their 
life, when the animosities of politics were burned 
out and these two statesmen of our heroic age wrote 
about their religious views and their literary tastes, 

it seems to me about the most beautiful thing in 

American literature ; and I like to recall what Jeffer- 

189 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

son used to say of his life at Monticello, when his 
writings are interspersed with remarks about his 
fields and his crops, his clover, and wheat, and flow- 
ers, and his holding to the view " that those who 
labor in the earth are the chosen people of God." 

There is a charm and a helpfulness about a life 
closer to nature, and amidst her great movements, 
which the city cannot give : you are oppressed and 
burdened, you are overwhelmed by your perplexities 
and mysteries ; you think no one can have such a 
hard lot as yours ; life seems more than you can bear ; 
and how you are steadied and calmed by the silent 
and mighty processes of nature ! The stars which look 
down upon you so peacefully ; the undisturbed 
revolution of the seasons ; the swelling buds of these 
spring days ; the great trees which boast not of their 
strength ; the vines which cling so tenderly around 
them ; the grateful shade of the forest ; the earth 
which never forgets to return its harvests ; the tiny 
seeds growing to massive proportions of plant and 
tree, — what never-ceasing delight, what quiet as- 
surance of some Overguiding Power and Care and 
Love, what serenity, what courage, does it all give. 
" Nothing for me is too early nor too late which is 
in due time for thee, O Universe," said the ancient 
philosopher. I would say, just altering a little the 
words of Kipling : 

*• God gave all men all earth to love. 
But since man's heart is small. 
Ordains for each one spot shall prove 
Beloved over all. 

190 



THE BANQUET 

Each to his choice, but I rejoice 
The lot has fallen to me 
In a fair ground, in a fair ground 
In Lincoln with its beauty." 

Mr. Storey. — Dr. DeNormandie, I suspect, is 
not really so young as he looks and feels, so I am 
going to call upon one whom both he and I know 
to be really young, and yet who has long and de- 
lightful associations with Lincoln inherited from his 
father, who was for so many years a well-known and 
much respected man among you, Mr. George C. 
Hodges. 



REMARKS BY GEORGE CLARENDON 
HODGES, ESQ. 

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
The phrase in which you asked me to come here 
to-night and say a good word for the town betrayed 
the newness of your conversion. Sir — had you 
been an older story in Lincoln you would have 
known that no one could or would dare say aught 
but a good word for her. It is true that we fight 
one another joyously and happily, — that is a family 
privilege, — but let any one attack the town, and 
our personal engagements are suspended until the 
common enemy is routed. 

Evidences of that loyalty you will see all about 
you, in the Public Library, the church, this very 
hall, and in the scholarship at Harvard College to 

191 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

which Lincoln's sons have always the preference — 
all the gifts of her loving children. And a like 
spirit is found in a charge upon the town seal, of the 
old chestnut-tree under which her boys and girls 
have grown to usefulness and maturity. 

And so conservative are we, so adherent to sound 
tradition and precedent, that we maintain one heredi- 
tary office, that of clerk, and the annals of the town 
for sixty years have been and are the records of one 
family. How well we all remember — those of us, 
that is, not too hopelessly young in years or resi- 
dence to remember anything — the first incumbent 
of the office from that family, — the dear old doctor. 
It is safe to say that no consideration of selfishness 
ever influenced an act of his life among us. Through 
his " long days of labor and nights devoid of ease " 
his friendly services and great skill were always at 
the command of the poor and needy not only of his 
own town but also of the whole county. And so 
great was his skill, so devoted his attention, that a 
leading member of his own profession, speaking of 
his death, said : " Middlesex County has lost the 
best family physician I ever knew." It is but a 
small tribute to his memory that we thus refer to 
him in our day of celebration, but we do so for our 
own sake. Lincoln's list of benefactors were sadly 
incomplete without the name of Dr. Chapin. 

Yet do not think that our conservatism and pride 
amount to self- sufficiency — we have heard that 
there are other counties almost as good, other towns 
nearly as wholesome, other people quite as wise. 

192 



Residence of Messrs. Era?icis and Charles S. Smith 
(p. 227) 



THE BANQUET 

All we do claim is foresight. When we were getting 
ready to disclose our age and then boast about it, 
we looked over the field, descended into Norfolk 
County, and annexed and made our very own the 
best she had, and, as a result, we have carried off a 
most successful celebration without the help of any 
outsiders — any outsiders, I say, for His Excellency 
the Governor is the property of the whole Com- 
monwealth and has a home in every town within its 
borders. 

Mr. Storey. — And now it is time that this part 
of our festival was over, and that the real questions 
of the day should begin, for we all hope that the 
young people, upon whom the hopes of the town 
for the next century rest, will have only the plea- 
santest memories of the town, whether on its birth- 
days or any other, and may never associate a thought 
of tedium with any of its celebrations. 

By virtue of the authority in me vested, I now 
declare this session adjourned to meet again in this 
hall after a decent interval, and to dance the new 
century in. 



LETTERS 



LETTERS 

From MR. LEWIS E. SMITH 

MooRFiELD Storey, Esq., 

Dear Sir, — I have the pleasure to receive a note 
from you, representing the committee for cele- 
brating the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the 
town of Lincoln, requesting me to say a few words 
at the dinner as the representative of the Brooks 
family. Regretting not being able to be present, I 
send a few notes which I hope may be suited to the 
occasion. 

These items of history were received from my 
grandfather, Colonel Daniel Brooks, in the home of 
my early years. He was descended in direct line from 
Joshua, one of the early settlers of Concord, through 
Daniel, Job, and John. 

He went to Concord on the morning of the 19th 
of April, 1775, being a lad of fourteen years, saw the 
British soldiers cut down the flagstaff of the Pro- 
vincials, watched the progress of events, and saw the 
beginning of the hasty retreat. Two years after, at 
the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the Continental 
Army and served a long term. The money received 
for this service he invested in a wood-lot of six acres, 
on the east side of Sandy Pond, which is now owned 
by his granddaughter, Mrs. James L. Chapin. 

197 



^ 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

In 1 812 he was captain of the Lincoln militia com- 
pany, and afterwards he was colonel of the Middle- 
sex militia. The town records show the offices he 
held in which he was associated with the ancestors 
of President Garfield. The town of Lincoln proudly 
honors his memory on Decoration Day. 

The town of Concord, from which Lincoln was 
taken in 1754, is said to be the oldest inland town in 
America. The Brookses were among the first settlers. 
Tradition says they spent the first winter in houses 
or caves dug into the long hill which bordered the 
great road to Lexington, since a noted place, as here 
the Concord grape originated, or was developed by 
Mr. Bull. Here Bronson Alcott lived while in Con- 
cord. The building of the Concord School of Phi- 
losophy was above on the hill, and the home of 
Ralph Waldo Emerson was scarce a quarter of a 
mile distant. 

From these settlers at the time of the Revolution 
were descended fourteen families of Brookses, who 
lived on farms in the north part of Lincoln with 
but few other names among them, so the wife was 
called Mrs. with the first name of her husband, the 
name Brooks being considered superfluous. 

The Brooks tavern, on the site of the present resi- 
dence of Mr. Samuel Hartwell, was the centre of 
the Brooks village, all the families being not more 
than a half mile distant. In the decade from 1835 
to 1 845 the writer recollects the heads of ten families 
then living, whose Bible names indicate their stanch 
Puritan origin, — Aaron, Asa, Daniel, Eleazar, In- 

198 



LETTERS 

crease, Isaac, Job, Joshua, Thomas, Timothy. With 
these we record the names of the distinguished law- 
yers living in Concord, Nathan Brooks and his son 
George M. Brooks. 

In the time of these men the Brooks village was 
a place of business importance. A large tannery 
and a currier's shop gave employment to many 
hands. The Brooks tavern, being on the thorough- 
fare from Boston called the Great Road, is said to 
have had the largest patronage of any hostelry out of 
Boston. Its large stables, covered driveways, sheds 
and buildings of great variety, made a picture which 
would be a choice one for a modern photographer. 

Passing the old North Schoolhouse, which then 
welcomed within its brick walls between 50 and 60 
scholars, were to be seen, at nearly all hours of the 
day, large teams of six and eight horses, innumerable 
wagons and carriages. In the winter a score or more 
of two-horse pungs from Vermont or New Hamp- 
shire often made the journey together. The four- 
horse mail stage, with Boston, Keene, Brattleboro, 
and U. S. M. inscribed in large letters, represented 
the transportation of those times. 

Monday was cattle market day at Brighton. 
The latter part of each week the fields were filled 
with droves of horned cattle, sheep and swine, and 
occasionally might be seen on the road 50 or 75 
horses in pairs attached to a rope between them. In 
short, this road represented the transportation which 
now belongs to the Fitchburg Railroad, not then 
built. 

199 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

At the present a few persons remain in the north 
part of Lincoln to represent the name of Brooks. 
Most of the descendants are scattered in the great 
West, where many have occupied positions of honor 
and usefulness. Some have served the country with 
distinction in the civil war. It would be a pleasure 
to recount their successes did time permit. We may 
be sure that all are proud of their Concord and 
Lincoln ancestry, whose history is replete with in- 
teresting reminiscences and praiseworthy incidents. 

Lewis E. Smith, 
Grandson of Colonel Daniel Brooks. 
Portsmouth, N. H., April i8, 1904. 

From EDWIN M. STEARNS 

WiNTHROP, April 21, 1904. 

MooRFiELD Storey, Esq^, 

AND Citizens of Lincoln : 
Deeply I regret that bodily infirmities may prevent 
my attendance at the anniversary celebration on the 
23d inst. English history informs us that the por- 
tion of Britain between the Wash and the Hum- 
ber, from whence came the pioneers of Lincoln, was 
wrested from the Britons and permanently occupied 
by the Teutonic tribe of Engs or Engles ; hence they 
were of strictly English origin. Hence, also, the real 
significance and true pronunciation of Eng-land, so 
perversely spoken Ingglund by the English people, 
who to this day mispronounce St. Johns as Sinjins, and 
commit many similar linguistic offences. That, in their 

200 



LETTERS 

evolutionary struggles with the atrocious orthography 
and pronunciation of Old Eng-land, and with the 
rugged rocks and erratic climate of New Eng-land, 
they came out intelligent and stalwart Yankees re- 
dounds immensely to their credit, and speaks vol- 
umes for their endurance. 

They appear to have been a hardy, industrious, 
frugal, thriving people, and to have transmitted these 
qualities to their numerous descendants, their fami- 
lies averaging from eight to ten children. By the time 
that incorporation seemed desirable, they must have 
been in comfortable circumstances, and able to assume 
municipal responsibilities. 

My Lincoln pedigree on the paternal side begins 
with my grandfather. Rev. Charles Stearns, D. D., 
who commenced preaching there in 1780, continuing 
until his death in 1826. Opportunely, his ministry 
occurred at a period when the entire town was his 
parish, and every man was taxed to support the 
minister, and when everybody went to church twice 
on Sunday; also, when such "divinity did hedge" 
a Doctor of Divinity that his presence was consid- 
ered a benediction, and his utterances oracular. As 
he died before I was two years old, the only remi- 
niscence of him that I am able to relate was his re- 
ported saying to my mother, " I thank you for that 
beautiful child." Much of my boyhood having 
passed among his surviving contemporaries, I well 
remember the reverence and esteem with which his 
memory was cherished. 

Although prominent among the preachers of his 
201 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

time and venerated by his parishioners, it was equally 
as a scholar, scientist, founder, and preceptor of the 
private literary and dramatic school which he con- 
ducted with great success for several years, also be- 
cause of his fitting so many young men for college, 
that Dr. Stearns left so permanent an impress upon 
the social atmosphere of Lincoln. His advent in 
Lincoln inaugurated an era of intelligence equally 
potent with the material epoch coincident with the 
completion of the railroad. It may be of interest to 
note in this connection that, as he was born in 1753 
and died in 1826, and I was born in 1825, the sum 
of our ages thus overlapping covers the entire one 
hundred fifty years of Lincoln's corporate existence. 
If, apparently, the following phase of clerical life in 
those days would sound better, if omitted, I can only 
say that my " hopeless and incurable veracity " would 
not permit any suppression or evasion of pertinent 
facts. As a rule, those old-time reverend gentlemen 
seldom undertook to preach a sermon without their 
preliminary toddy. Indeed, it was considered such a 
necessity that when my father commenced preaching 
my mother received the following injunction from 
Grandmother Stearns, viz., " Betsey, never allow 
Daniel to go into the pulpit until he has had his rum." 
The town records exhibit the quantities of wines and 
liquors required for installation or funereal purposes 
in those godly times. 

Although I was born in Dorchester on Meeting 
House Hill, where my father taught school in 1825, 
and afterwards lived on Cape Cod until I was four- 

202 



LETTERS 

teen, I spent a portion of nearly every year in Lincoln, 
and grew up familiar with the primitive conditions 
then prevailing. With scarcely an exception, all 
household and farming implements now in use have 
either been invented or radically changed since I can 
remember. There were no friction matches, cooking 
stoves, nor furnaces, no horserakes, mowing, sewing 
nor washing machines, in fact, hardly anything now 
considered a necessity. Laborers worked from sun 
to sun without thinking of a claim for shorter hours, 
although occasionally one was made for longer 
rations. 

A marked distinction between farming methods 
now and then consists in the substitution of horses 
for oxen. Formerly, the carting of heavy loads to 
Boston was done by oxen, the driver trudging all 
the way on foot beside his team. When I was six- 
teen years old, I drove with oxen a load of wood for 
sale to Boston. Foolishly rejecting my first offer, I 
waited five hours for another and lesser one. Be- 
cause of this delay, it was " sundown " when I left 
the city. At Brighton Corner I drove the team 
under a shed, and went into a " victualling cellar " 
to warm myself. Unconsciously, I remained so long 
that the cattle, becoming impatient, started for home. 
Consequently, I ran two miles before overtaking 
them. We reached home at about 9 p. m., the trip 
lasting twenty-two hours. Other equally brilliant 
experiences during my intercourse with oxen might 
be related. I think oxen were considered more hardy 
than horses, more powerful and less expensive. On 

203 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

most farms the ground was so rocky that the slower 
pace of oxen, while plowing, saved many a dig in the 
ribs and broken plow. Again, when oxen became 
superannuated they could be fattened for beef, while 
a worn-out horse was valuable only for his hide. 

During my farming career peach culture attained 
its maximum. I am confirmed in stating that one 
year Lincoln raised more peaches than all the rest 
of the State. Their excellence of quality and flavor 
has never been surpassed. They had their delicious 
and profitable day. Then came the " Yellows " and 
destroyed them all. This, together with the advent 
of the railroad, diverted the farmers' attention to 
raising strawberries, asparagus, and cucumbers for 
pickles ; also from butter and cheese to selling milk 
to the milkmen from Lexington. So that when 
Sandy Pond was tapped we furnished Concord with 
water and Lexington with milk, while Lincoln hill 
served as the moral and physical barrier which pre- 
vented the two fluids from mingling in that cerulean 
quality of " Richness," with which the renowned 
Mr. Squeers of Dotheboy's Hall regaled the inmates 
of that classical institution. 

Although Hudson's " History of Lexington " 
traces my maternal ancestry to the time of Alfred 
the Great, when the Munroes were already a power- 
ful clan, the Lincoln Munroes were the descendants 
of William Munroe of Lexington, who was one of 
Cromwell's prisoners of war, sent to this country and 
sold into a limited slavery. He afterwards bought 
his freedom, was married three times, and became 

204 



LETTERS 

the father of thirteen children. Among them was 
my mother's great-grandfather, Benjamin Munroe, 
who was one of the twenty-two persons who built the 
first meeting-house in Lincoln for both sacred and 
secular convocations. I have seen town-meetings 
held in the Dennis meeting-house — and an elec- 
tion of militia officers conducted from the ' Deacon's 
Seat,' under the pulpit front in the Lincoln meeting- 
house. Colonel William Foster, who presided, still 
lives in Waltham, aged eighty-nine. 

The house in which my mother was born, in the 
East District, was situated near a spring, now shaded 
by a copse of willows growing from a stake driven 
into the ground by myself about sixty years ago. 
My grandfather, Isaac Munroe, moved the house 
nearer the highway, and lived in it until he died, 
aged eighty-four ; after which my father. Rev, Daniel 
M. Stearns, formerly of Dennis, Mass., occupied 
the place. He, dying at the age of fifty-four, left my 
mother, nee Betsey Munroe, with three sons and a 
daughter, myself the oldest child. The others died 
of consumption before they were twenty-one. Upon 
being threatened with the same disease, I decided to 
try a change of climate ; so with my wife and mother 
we removed to southern Illinois in 1857. Thus 
ended my residence in Lincoln. Nothing of my old 
home remains. It was burned years ago. A new 
road runs through the old farm, avoiding the steep 
hill down which I have taken many a midnight ride 
with startling velocity in my big wagon on the way 
to Boston market. My horse, apparently afraid of 

205 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

being run over by the heavy load, would not budge 
at any other rate of speed. Had not the animal 
proved sure-footed, how far I might have been pro- 
jected through the boundless realms of space still 
remains to be computed. 

As my first appearance in society when only six 
years old, visiting at my Grandfather Munroe's, serves 
to introduce one of the old-time methods of social 
enjoyment, it may have appropriate mention here. 
Every winter it was incumbent upon each family to 
give a neighborhood party. All the neighbors were 
invited. Other society parties consisted of congenial 
friends. The ladies would arrive in the afternoon, 
and the gentlemen would come to tea and spend the 
evening, sometimes remaining as late as nine o'clock. 
At early candle-light supper would be served, almost 
invariably consisting of milk toast of baker's bread, 
— then styled brickloaf, more because of its shape 
than of its consistency, also various kinds of pies, 
preserves and cakes. AH sat around the room hold- 
ing the comestibles in their laps, — a ticklish job for 
the men, of course. On this occasion I was to pass 
around the cream and sugar, on a little waiter. Alas 
for juvenile ambition, I upset the cream upon the 
floor ! Ordinarily, in such cases the dog was called 
to lick it up. Consequently, I frantically screamed, 
" Call Dick ! Call Dick ! " As everybody laughed 
heartily at my mishap, it proved the most hilarious 
episode of the evening. 

As a farmer, my life in Lincoln was an incon- 
spicuous combination of rigid economy, frequent 

206 



Residence of Charles Francis Adams, Esq. 
(p. 229) 



LETTERS 

bereavement, hard work, and good times, I always 
having a strong inclination toward the latter. I was 
an ardent Whig as long as the party lasted. I have 
an impression that one year, 1840, Lincoln voted 96 
Whig to 3 Democrat. It was frequently near that 
proportion. I played the big fiddle, and afterward 
the organ, which Mr. Charles L. Tarbell and my- 
self purchased for the Unitarian Society ; and a sav- 
age specimen of a crude reed organ it was, to be sure. 
I officiated as constable one year, and as moderator 
one afternoon, rendering such peculiar and complete 
satisfaction that I was never solicited to serve in 
either capacity again. As secretary of the Lyceum 
for several years, I posted notices each Sunday in 
winter, that on Tuesday evening a lecture might be 
expected. Occasionally it so remained. Before the 
town-hall was erected, the Lyceum was conducted 
in the Centre schoolhouse, where came many such 
eminent lecturers as Emerson, Thoreau, and others. 
Some sessions of the Lyceum were devoted to 
debates, which pleased those as young as myself 
better than lectures. Sometimes after adjournment, 
a number of young men, instigated by an irrepres- 
sible yearning for supplemental knowledge, would 
remain, poring over certain unbound volumes of 
ancient history, quaintly illustrated with highly col- 
ored portraits of kings, queens, and their attendants, 
also representations of antique weapons and agricul- 
tural implements, together with symbols of that 
romantic affinity between hearts and diamonds so 
ardently indicated by the magnitude and brilliancy 

207 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

of engagement solitaires. This, of course, entailed 
an extra expense for lights and fuel. The house was 
lighted by a few small tin petticoat lamps, possibly 
burning fifteen cents' worth of oil of an evening. 
The aforesaid extravagance, being discovered, was 
criticised at a subsequent meeting, by one who sar- 
castically proposed that in addition to fire and lights, 
champagne and cigars be furnished. Whereupon 
I made a motion that the gentleman be constituted 
a committee of one to provide such refreshments at 
his own expense. The proposition was adopted with 
tumultuous applause. 

As the following is an historic fact, I deem it ex- 
cusable to claim credit for having devised means for 
establishing the first high school in Lincoln. The 
town having built a two-storied town-hall, — now 
Chapin's store, — many citizens were desirous of 
opening a high school on the first floor. Although 
several auxiliary contributions were proffered, the 
estimated expense was greater than the voters were 
willing to assume. As each district was tenacious 
of its proportion of the school fund, the enterprise 
" hung fire " until a satisfactory method of dividing 
the amount was worked out by the subscriber and 
proposed by him in town-meeting. It being then 
and there adopted, the high school was assured 
and, not long after, was established. 

As the town records are not likely to corroborate 
the aforesaid, I will say that Brigadier-General James 
Jones, Jr., was moderator for the first time in his life 
when the matter was decided. He, being unfamiliar 

208 



LETTERS 

with the parliamentary courtesy which entitles the 
originator of a proposition to the chairmanship of a 
resultant committee, failed to put me on the com- 
mittee to which the business was entrusted. There- 
fore my name might not appear in that connection. 

But when we young folks wanted a dancing school 
in the town-hall, the combat deepened. A number 
of very excellent people who had danced when they 
were young had " lived to see the folly of it." They 
therefore objected to exposing us to a similar disas- 
trous experience. As noticeably they had emerged 
from the ordeal in such fine condition, we decided 
we would risk the consequences. The matter was 
vigorously contested in several town-meetings with- 
out our securing permission to use the hall. Where- 
upon, I drew up a paper as follows : " We, the 
undersigned, legal voters of the town of Lincoln, 
hereby testify that we have no objection to granting 
the use of the town-hall for dancing parties pro- 
perly conducted." A majority of the voters having 
signed the document, the Selectmen let us have the 
hall. The dancing school was on its legs right away. 

The Lincoln district schools of my time were four 
in number. Their curriculum consisted of the three 
Rs, geography, grammar, and United States history, 
together with a class in natural philosophy. Also 
astronomy from a book entitled " The Geography 
of the Heavens," wherein we were quite as much in- 
terested in the mythology of the constellations as in 
the statistics of the stars. Quite a smattering of Eng- 
lish literature could be acquired from the reading 

209 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

books then in vogue. We had some such eminent 
teachers as Dr. Thomas Hill, afterwards president of 
Harvard, Alexander W. Thayer, many years United 
States consul at Trieste, also many other undergrad- 
uates from Harvard, together with considerable 
equally efficient home talent of both sexes. Indeed 
it was not uncommon for farmers' sons and daugh- 
ters to step directly from the pupil's bench up to the 
teacher's desk. Others took preparatory courses of 
instruction in normal schools, academies, etc. I know 
of Lincoln's furnishing teachers to Concord, Lexing- 
ton, Waltham, Boston, and Charlestown — possibly 
to other towns. I attended school in the typical old 
red schoolhouse in the East District. 

At that time fifty full-blooded Yankee scholars 
regularly assembled in that old " shooting gallery for 
young ideas." Did we have fun ? Echo answers 
Fun. Nearly every week in winter we had a party. 
Some teachers did not think our scholarship was 
much improved thereby. Others joined with us, and 
contributed to the enjoyment. That venerable edifice 
was supplanted by a white one, which, in turn, has 
disappeared. 

Public interest in the schools was most conspicu- 
ous on Examination Day, when a full attendance of 
friends and parents was assured. The children in 
their Sunday clothes were on their mettle to excel, 
and the teachers were on tenter-hooks, lest something 
should go amiss, as everything incorrect or super- 
ficial caught a chill when Mr. Abel Wheeler cate- 
chised. The chair on which Dr. Stearns always sat 

210 



LETTERS 

when the East District School was examined was an 
heirloom in my old home as long as I remained in 
Lincoln. I wish its present domicile was known. 
The interchangeable School District Library proved 
a very useful and attractive adjunct to the schools. 
Though not of Carnegie proportion, its well-selected 
volumes were of more intrinsic value than stacks of 
the ephemeral literature with which empty heads are 
now content to stuff themselves. 

Was it Dr. Holmes who counselled against tracing 
one's ancestry too remotely, lest the family line 
should unfortunately terminate in a noose ? The 
Stearns genealogists discreetly end their investigations 
with a certain Archbishop of York, which sounds 
well for those who, like myself, are of clerical descent. 
The genial doctor also advises those proposing to be 
born to advertise about sixty years beforehand for a 
pair of satisfactory grandparents. Having selected 
my ancestors, as aforesaid, with the consequent results, 
and having fortunately located them in Lincoln, I 
remain 

Very truly yours, 
(Signed) Edwin M. Stearns. 



HISTORICAL NOTES 

ON THE 
ILLUSTRATIONS 



HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE 
ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Town Hall Frontispiece 

See " Dedication of the New Town House in 
Lincoln, Mass'tts, May 26, 1892." Boston, T. 
R. Marvin & Son, 1893. 

First Parish Church P^ge i 

See " Historical Manual of the Church of 
Christ in Lincoln, Mass." Boston, Tolman & 
White, 1 872. " Proceedings in Observance of the 
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
Organization of the First Parish Church in Lin- 
coln, Mass'tts, Aug. 2 1 St and Sept. 4th, 1898." 
Cambridge, The University Press, 1899. 

The Library 9 

See " Proceedings at the Dedication of the 
Lincoln Library, Aug. 5th, 1884." Cambridge, 
John Wilson & Son, 1884. 

The Unitarian Church 9 

On August 12, 1 841, a Unitarian Congregational 
Society was formed in Lincoln by the following 
persons : — 

Leonard Hoar Charles Brown 

Albert G. Spaulding Ruflis Morse 

Francis Newhall Francis S. Bemis 

George H. Wheeler William Foster 

Solomon Foster Albert Hagar 
215 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

Daniel M. Stearns Samuel Thwing 

Charles L. Tarbell William Warren 

Cyrus Brown Isaac Munroe 

Elijah Fiske William F. Wheeler 

Charles Wheeler Asa Spaulding 

Abel Wheeler Abijah Benjamin 
Leonard Hoar, Jr. 

In November of the following year the Meet- 
ing House was finished and dedicated, and the Rev. 
Samuel Ripley of Waltham was asked to be the 
minister. 

The William Hartwell House .... 24 
William Hartwell and his wife Susan came to 
Concord and settled on this farm in 1636, probably 
having come from England in that year. This 
house, either the whole or a part of it, is the ori- 
ginal house that he built, and is believed to date 
from the year 1636. William Hartwell was born 
in 1 600 and died in 1690. It was near this house 
that some of the hardest fighting of the day on 
the 19th of April, 1775, occurred. This place re- 
mained in the possession of the family until 1861, 
Mr. Samuel H. Pierce being the last to occupy it. 

The Samuel Hartwell House .... 38 
This house was built by Samuel Hartwell, bro- 
ther or son of William Hartwell, the first settler 
of that name in Concord, and was occupied by the 
family until 1875, ^^' ]^^^ ^' Hartwell being 
the last owner. 

The Farrar Homestead 52 

The front and main part of this house was built 
in 1692 by George Farrar — the first to dwell on 
216 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

the place. He was son of Jacob Farrar who was 
killed in King Philip's war, and grandson of Jacob 
Farrar who came to Lancaster, Mass., in 1642, and 
was one of the founders of that town. They were 
" descendants of Gualkeline de Ferrariis, a Norman 
of distinction, attached to William, Duke of Nor- 
mandy, before the invasion of 1066, and Henry 
de Farrars his son, who was the first of the family 
who settled in England, and whose name is on the 
Roll of the Battle Abbey." 

Among those who were born in this house, and 
part or all of whose life was spent here, have been : 

Samuel Farrar, who in 1773 was chairman of 
the first Committee of Correspondence, member 
of the first Provincial Congress, and took part in 
the battle at Concord. 

Rev. Stephen Farrar, who was the first minister 
of New Ipswich, N. H., and who served there more 
than fifty years. 

Hon. Timothy Farrar, who was judge of the 
courts in New Hampshire for forty-six years, be- 
ing appointed Chief Justice of the Superior Court 
in 1 802 ; he lived to be one hundred and one years, 
seven months, and twelve days, being the oldest 
person buried in Mount Auburn. 

Captain Samuel Farrar, who was captain of the 
militia, and served with his company at the battle 
at Concord, helped fortify Dorchester Heights, 
and was afterward captain of a company of Volun- 
teers who enlisted for the war, being present at the 
surrender of Burgoyne. 

Samuel Farrar, Esq., Harvard, 1797. "Tutor, 
Harvard College, 1800-01. Settled in Andover as 
217 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

lawyer, 1 8oi. Trustee of Phillips Academy, 1802— 
40. Treasurer, 1 803-40. Librarian of Seminary 
^2 years. Trustee of Abbot Academy, 1828-51. 
First President of Andover Bank, 1826-56. Dea- 
con of Seminary church, 1 8 1 6-64. Constantly and 
thoroughly identified with the interests of the 
Academy and Seminary, and a liberal benefactor 
to both; superintended all the buildings for the 
institutions in his time; conceived the plan of the 
* Teachers' Seminary.'" (From "Biographical 
Catalogue of Phillips Academy,") 

Professor John Farrar, LL. D., professor of 
Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in Harvard 
College for about thirty years, and publisher of a 
dozen college text books. 

George Farrar, a lawyer in Charlestown. 

The house has furnished a deacon in the Lincoln 
church for one hundred and forty-five years, and 
men active in service in town affairs. The road 
leading past the house was originally called Sud- 
bury Way, and was in existence in 1648. The 
house is now occupied by Miss Mary B. Farrar 
and her brothers Samuel and Edward R. Farrar. 
The Garfield House 80 

The land on which the Garfield house stands 
was purchased of Samuel Tainter by Benjamin 
Garfield in 1702-03. The farm contained one 
hundred and twenty acres. 

In his will, dated May 22, 171 7, he gives said 
land to his son Thomas Garfield, who undoubt- 
edly built and occupied this house. " Thomas Gar- 
field in his will, dated January 27th, 1752, be- 
queaths to his son Thomas Garfield, ' all my lands 
218 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

and buildings in said Weston, and in Concord 
adjoining thereto.' This house is situated at the 
end of a grass-grown lane about forty rods from 
the high road leading from Lincoln to Waltham 
and two miles from the centre of Lincoln. It is 
a secluded spot of great beauty. The house, a 
square, unpainted, two-story house with a great 
chimney in the middle, stands surrounded by old 
elms and apple trees, in a tract of fertile meadow, 
with the Lincoln hill in the distance." The house 
remained in the possession of his descendants until 
1850. It is now owned and occupied by Mr. 
George R. Wheeler. 

(See " Pres. Garfield's New England Ancestry," 
by George F. Hoar. Worcester, Mass., Charles 
Hamilton, 1882.) 

The Nelson House 94 

The first Nelson house was built in the westerly 
part of Lexington early in the eighteenth century 
by Thomas Nelson, who came from Rowley. Only 
the cellar hole filled with field stones now remains 
to mark the site, a short distance east from the 
second Nelson house, the subject of this sketch, 
which is still standing. Thomas Nelson probably 
built this house also, his land being set off from 
Lexington when Lincoln became a town in 1754 ; 
his son Josiah was then but twenty-eight years of 
age. The house was thoroughly built, with heavy 
oaken frame and large chimney containing a brick 
oven and three fireplaces. It stands upon the 
north side of the old road that was then used as 
the main highway from Boston to Concord, and 
has remained in the possession of the Nelson 
219 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

family to the present time, though it has been un- 
occupied for nearly forty years. 

The following is a tradition as handed down to 
George Nelson, the grandson of Josiah Nelson : — 

" On the 19th of April, 1775, at about 2 o'clock 
in the morning, Josiah Nelson, who had been ap- 
pointed a minuteman to keep watch and notify 
Bedford when the British spies were coming, was 
awakened by his wife, who told him that she heard 
voices of persons going by and that he had bet- 
ter go out and inquire if they had heard any- 
thing about the British. He arose, slipped on his 
breeches and hurried out without shoes or hat, and 
was soon among a party of fifteen or sixteen horse- 
men who were riding toward Boston. It is said 
that Paul Revere was a prisoner with this party. 
Josiah Nelson, thinking they were some neighbors 
going to market, ran in among the horsemen be- 
fore he looked up to make sure who they were, 
and called out, * Have you heard anything about 
when the Regulars are coming out ? ' One of the 
men, who was a British officer, drew his sword and 

said, * God you, we will let you know when 

they are coming,' and struck him on the head, 
cutting a gash three inches long. They then said, 
' You are our prisoner and must come along with 
us,' and he was made to walk between the sol- 
diers. When they were a short distance below the 
Hastings house he told them he could n't walk as 
fast as they rode, for he was lame. They said they 
could n't ride as slow as he walked, for they were 
in a harry, so they left him with three men. When 
he began to talk with these men he found they 
220 



Brendan 

Residence of Mrs. George Ropes 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

were men of his acquaintance, Tories, who had 
been to Concord to show the spies where the 
ammunition was stored. They told him if he 
would go home and not light a light, they would 
let him go, but if he lighted a light they would 
burn his house over his head. He went back to 
his house, lighted a candle and had his wife bind 
up his head, then he loaded his horse pistols and 
saddled the old mare, put on the pistols and fol- 
lowed after the soldiers toward Lexington. When 
he reached the top of the hill just west of the town, 
he heard them firing on the Common. He knew 
then that the Regulars had surely come, so he took 
the road to the left and rode to Bedford to notify 
that town, as he was appointed to do. During that 
day the women went into the woods and stayed 
there till night." 

" A man named William Thorning was hiding 
in a hole in the field, a short distance west of 
the Nelson house, on the afternoon of April 19, 
1775- When the British in retreat passed along 
the road opposite where he lay he fired into the 
ranks. A volley was fired in reply, the bullets 
cutting up the ground about him. He ran for the 
woods but was met by the flank guard, who fired at 
him, but he was not hit. After the British had gone 
along he came out from the woods and ran up be- 
hind a large boulder, which stands just west of the 
Nelson house, and fired into the ranks again." 

There is a tradition that two British soldiers 
were buried on the knoll across the road, southeast 
of the Nelson house, which is still called " The 
Soldiers' Graves." 

221 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

The Flint House io8 

Thomas Flint, born 1603, came from Matlock, 
Derbyshire, England, to Boston in 1635, ^^^ ^^~ 
moved to Concord in 1637. He settled near the 
middle of the town somewhere along the river. 
He was a representative of the General Court of 
Massachusetts 1638-41, and Governor's Assist- 
ant (or Councillor) from 1641-53, the time of 
his death. 

The following entry in the Records of the Col- 
ony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England 
under the date of May 28, 1661, shows the esti- 
mation in which his public service was held : — 

" The court considering that Mr. Thomas 
Flynt, deceased, served the Country in the magis- 
tracy & other public capacitjes, & some whiles 
after publicke allowanc was payd unto the ma- 
gistrates & had no recompense nor any graunt of 
lands, & that ye sd Mr. Flynt left a widow & 
numerous family, many whereof were in minority, 
. . . Judg Meete to graunt to the widow of 
ye deceased Mr. Flint & her sonne John, Eight 
hundred acres of land. . . ." 

Ephraim Flint, son of Thomas Flint, born 
1642, settled in the part of Concord now included 
in Lincoln, and was the owner of a large tract of 
land. The bounds of a portion of his real estate 
are thus given : — 

" 750 acres of upland and meadow, more or less, 
bounded on the South East by the town bound- 
ing line ; eastwardly by John Farwell's land : on 
the North by Nath. Stone and William Hart- 
well's, and from thence to the South end of the 
222 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

meadow, called ye great meadow, adjoining to 
upland belonging to Sergeant. Tho. Wheeler : 
and from thence by a straight line to ye great 
pond, belonging to ye sayd Eph. Flint, and from 
this pond to Beaver pond by the brookes run- 
ning out of sayd ponds, and from thence by a 
straight line to ye town bound line. Feb. 25th, 
1680-81. 

J. Buckley." 

This farm has been owned, after Ephraim Flint, 
successively by his nephew Edward Flint, b. 1685, 
grandson of Thomas Flint ; by his nephew 
Ephraim Flint, b. 1 7 1 3, great-grandson of Thomas 
Flint ; by his son of the same name, b. 1744 ; by 
his son of the same name, b. 1782, d. 1871 ; by 
his son George Flint. 

The original homestead on this land was on 
the site of the house now occupied by Miss Julia 
A. Bemis. There are no records available to 
show when the site of the present homestead was 
first occupied, or when the present house was 
built. 
The Dr. Russell House 122 

This house was occupied by Dr. Richard Rus- 
sell, who was born in Charlestown, Mass., and 
baptized February 24, 1750-51. " He served an 
apprenticeship at the tanner's trade with Deacon 
Joshua Brooks in Lincoln. On the morning of 
the day he became of age he rose early, washed 
his hands thoroughly and made a vow never to 
put them into a tan yard again. He immediately 
commenced the study of medicine and subse- 
223 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

quently practiced in Lincoln." He married, July 
28, 1777, at Lincoln, Elizabeth, daughter of Na- 
than and Rebecca (Adams) Brown of Lincoln. Dr. 
Russell was drowned by the upsetting of a boat 
in Beaver Pond, August 12, 1796. His wife sur- 
vived him till May 18, 1838. 

Dr. Russell had nine children, the youngest of 
whom, George, born September 23, 1795, gradu- 
ated from the Harvard Medical School in 1820 
and practiced medicine here for a number of years, 
also occupying this house. 

After Dr. Russell removed from Lincoln Dr. 
Henry C. Chapin, just graduated from the medi- 
cal school, came to Lincoln, and in 1856 bought 
this house. Rapidly winning the confidence of 
the people, his circuit soon came to embrace sev- 
eral of the adjoining towns, and the testimony of 
one who knew him well is that no night was so 
dark or stormy, no distance so great and no weari- 
ness so exhausting that he failed cheerfully and 
promptly to respond to the call of the suffering. 
The rich and the poor were alike the objects of 
his conscientious and patient care, although often 
in the case of the latter he well knew that no com- 
pensation could be rendered. This ministry of 
faithful service lasted for more than fifty years, 
his death occurring in 1896. His two daughters. 
Miss L. Jennie and Miss Elizabeth Chapin, now 
occupy the house. 
The Foster House 136 

Solomon Foster bought this farm of Benjamin 
Munroe in 1784, and built a house upon the 
present site, into which he moved in 1785. The 
224 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

house was remodeled in 1841, the old house form- 
ing the L of the new. The place remained in the 
possession of the family until 1891. It was sold 
in that year to Mr. John B. Sawin, who sold it 
in 1893 to Mr. William S. Briggs, who sold it in 
1897 to its present owner. In 1898 the house was 
again remodeled, a part of the original homestead 
of 1785 being preserved in the present house. 

The Dr. Stearns House 150 

This house was built by Dr. Charles Stearns, 
minister of the town from 1780 to 1826, The 
house was substantially built with unusually well 
finished interior. The tradition is that Dr. Stearns 
found it a too expensive house for him to live in 
with his growing family, — he had eleven children, 
though all did not live to grow up, — so that he felt 
obliged to sell it. Its subsequent owners were 
Captain Cole, George Weston, Calvin Smith, and 
Cyrus G. Smith, its present owner. 

The Hoar House 164 

The pedigree of the American branch of the 
Hoar family begins with Charles Hoare of Glouces- 
ter, England, no clue to his parentage having 
been found. His son, Charles, was sheriff of 
Gloucester in 1 634. He was a man of large wealth 
and greatly respected. He died in England in 
1638, and his widow, Joanna, came to this country 
with five of his children about the year 1640. His 
son, John, was the ancestor of the Hoars who set- 
tled in Lincoln. It is believed that he married 
Alice Lisle, a daughter of Lady Alicia Lisle, about 
whom there is interesting history connected with 
the time of Cromwell and James II. 
225 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

His grandson, John, the great-grandson of 
Charles, Sheriff of Gloucester, was the first of the 
family to settle in Lincoln, then Lexington. Dur- 
ing the French and Indian war, in 1748, he was 
taken prisoner and remained a captive among the 
Indians for three months. His son, Samuel, was 
born in Lincoln in 1743. Hewasalieutenant in the 
Revolutionary War, took part in the battle of Sara- 
toga, was many years a magistrate of Middlesex 
County, representative from Lincoln in the legis- 
lature, state senator and member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention in 1820. He married Susanna 
Pierce, daughter of Colonel Abijah Pierce of Lin- 
coln. It was said of him, " He lived all the beati- 
tudes daily." He built the house now standing 
near the centre of the town on the road to Weston, 
in 1 8 18, from timber blown down in the great 
September gale of 1815. His grandson, Samuel 
Hoar Pierce (whose father changed his name from 
Hoar to Pierce in 181 1), was the last member of 
the family to own the house, and his brother, John 
H. Pierce, built (in 1900) the colonial house on 
the opposite side of the road on land belonging to 
the family for over one hundred years. Another 
grandson, George Grosvenor Tarbell, built and 
gave to the town its library. 

Of the children of Samuel Hoar his son Sam- 
uel became the most prominent. He was born in 
Lincoln in 1778, brought up on his father's farm 
in the east part of the town, and fitted for college 
by the Rev. Charles Stearns. He graduated from 
Harvard in 1802. He became one of the most 
eminent lawyers at the Middlesex Bar. He mar- 
226 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

ried the daughter of Roger Sherman and lived 
in Concord, where his sons, Ebenezer Rockwood, 
Edward Sherman, and George Frisbie, were born. 
Senator Hoar took great pride in saying, " My 
grandfather, two great grandfathers, and three of 
my father's uncles were at Concord Bridge in the 
Lincoln company, of which my grandfather, Samuel 
Hoar, was lieutenant, on the 1 9th of April, 1 775." 

The Smith House 192 

This farm lies in the westerly part of Lincoln on 
the borders of Sandy Pond, whose shore it follows 
for a fourth of its circumference. The Pond and 
its brook, which flows from its southeast corner, 
have been distinguishing bound-marks in the farm 
deeds. In early deeds it appears as the Great 
Pond to distinguish it from the smaller ponds 
about. Its mile length justly entitles it to that 
designation. Next it is called Flint's Pond, from 
the family which owned the land eastward from the 
brook. This name in turn gave way to Sandy 
Pond, which was suggested by one of its dominant 
characteristics, giving to the fine sheet of water 
more individuality than could come from any at- 
tachment to the personality of a man or group of 
men, and permitting it to develop a history of its 
own. This name has persisted, and is the com- 
mon appellation to-day, though the name Forest 
Lake, coming from another natural though more 
general characteristic, has had some prominence. 

" Beautiful for situation " easily applies to any 

such location as distinguishes this farm. Hill, 

plain, and water give variety of contour. Forests, 

pastures, meadows, and tilled fields give added 

227 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

beauty and variety. The most conspicuous mark 
for many years has been an acre of ancient and 
lofty pines on a steep hillside, overlooking the 
farm and furnishing a landmark for all the coun- 
try around. 

The location of the house argued practical sense 
and an appreciation of the beautiful on the part 
of early owners. It stood, facing the south, just 
below a sheltering hillock on the borders of the 
pond, and at the same time afforded glimpses of 
the water and its setting in two directions. The 
old house was burned in 1877 and was replaced 
by the present structure. 

The farm, of more than 125 acres, has been in 
the Smith family for five generations. Zacheriah, 
who was of the fifth generation from Thomas 
Smith, a proprietor in Watertown from 1637 to 
1693, had it of the Dakin family in 1788. It 
passed from Zacheriah to Jonas in 1829, and from 
Jonas to Francis in 1850, and its active interests 
are now in the hands of his son Charles and his 
grandson Sumner. It was in the Dakin family 
for three generations. Simon had it of Nathaniel 
Hobart in 1 702. It was deeded to Samuel in 1 773, 
and passed to Samuel, Jr., in 1775. Nathaniel 
Hobart, or Hubbard, was apparently the only one 
of the name to hold the land. It was deeded to 
him by Ebenezer Prout in 1700 and 1701, and 
then for the first time the original tract appears in 
its entirety. The old farm contained some 800 
acres, extending from the " Great Pond " to 
" Beaver Pond," and with it, the deed says, went 
one eighth of the common-land of Concord, thus 
228 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

taking us back to the old English custom by which 
one might hold both individual property and an 
interest in common or undivided land, a relic of 
the old relation of chief and tradesman, and point- 
ing out also the origin of our New England 
"commons." The farm was in the Prout fam- 
ily for two generations. Timothy, the father of 
Ebenezer, was the first of the family to hold it. 
He had it, in 167 1, of Peter Bulkley, a London 
apothecary, who evidently inherited it from his 
father, Peter Bulkley, the first minister of Con- 
cord. It is an interesting fact, tending to show 
how this immediate vicinity was populated in the 
seventeenth century, that in the year 1686 the In- 
dians deeded to Peter Bulkley and another a large 
tract of land in another part of the town of Con- 
cord, and in this connection to remember that 
until the year 1754 the history of Concord in 
part is the history of what, after that date, was 
the town of Lincoln. Beginning with the deed 
of Ebenezer Prout and running backward to at 
least 1698, the land is distinguished as Coble's 
farm, but whether from some accidental circum- 
stance, or because some Goble had the farm be- 
fore Minister Bulkley, has not been discovered. 

A dozen generations have lived their history 
into the farm. It could tell interesting tales if we 
could interpret its word. We are to-day influenced 
for better or worse by what these earlier genera- 
tions did or left undone. 

The Adams House 206 

This house, in the southwest portion of the 
town, overlooks Fairhaven Bay. It stands not 
229 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

far from the Concord- Lincoln line. It was built 
by Mr. William A. Burnham, previously a resi- 
dent of Boston, in 1890; and was occupied by 
him and his family during the summers of 1891 
and 1892. The property was purchased by Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams, previously of Quincy, in 
May, 1 893, and first occupied by his family as their 
place of residence in the autumn of 1894. 

Originally the bulk of the present (1905) hold- 
ing was known as the Baker Farm, and Henry D. 
Thoreau devoted a chapter of his Walden to it 
under that name. The farm seems to have been a 
part of the original Concord township bordering on 
Fairhaven Bay, and adjoining the Bulkeley grant 
on the east and the Stow grant on the south, but 
not itself allotted in bulk. It passed into the hands 
of the Baker family about 1740, and was held by 
that family through four generations, and until 
sold to Mr. Burnham, in 1888. The old Baker 
homestead, built about 1740, and facing the origi- 
nal road from Concord to Sudbury, still stands 
near the entrance to the avenue leading to the more 
modern house. 

A portion of the Baker farm, bordering on Fair- 
haven Bay, was known as Pleasant Meadow, and 
is referred to as such by Thoreau. Mr. Burnham 
so called the place. That name not appealing to 
Mr. Adams, who subsequently added considerable 
tracts of woodland to the original farm, the entire 
holding was called by him Birnam Wood. 

The Paul Revere Tablet i'^2> 

It has always been a well-established historical 
fact that, in the early morning hours of April 19, 
230 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

1775, Colonel Paul Revere, on his celebrated ride 
from Charlestown through Lexington on the way 
to Concord, was stopped within Lincoln limits. 
He there encountered a mounted British patrol, 
and was by it detained, proceeding no farther. 
The exact spot where this occurred is not fixed 
either as matter of record or by tradition. Among 
the people of Lincoln, however, especially those 
living in the vicinity of the North road, there 
had long been a feeling that the town should pro- 
vide some suitable memorial of the event. Mr. 
Lorenzo E. Brooks especially interested him- 
self, and an article relating to the matter was at 
his instance inserted in the warrant for the Annual 
Town Meeting of 1895. (Article XVII.) No 
action was then taken upon it. Two years later 
the selectmen referred to the subject in their Re- 
port. (Town-book, 1897-98, p. 36.) They said 
that while it might " not be absolutely certain 
where the exact spot is, the erection of said tablet 
should be made in accordance with the best infor- 
mation possible." The matter was accordingly 
again brought before the town, and, at the ad- 
journed meeting of April 7, 1 897, the sum of one 
hundred dollars was appropriated to be expended by 
the Public Improvement Committee in procuring 
and erecting " a monument, with a suitable inscrip- 
tion thereon to designate the place." (Town-book, 
1897-98, p. 19.) The state highway was at that 
time in course of construction, and the Committee 
on Public Improvements deferred taking any ac- 
tion until it was completed, meanwhile suggesting 
to the town some doubts whether, in view of the 
231 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 

uncertainties of the case, "a memorial at the point 
indicated is altogether desirable." (Town-book, 
1897-98, p. 66.) The wish of those advocating 
the memorial was, however, so clearly expressed 
by Mr. Brooks, and so emphasized, that immedi- 
ately after the work on that portion of the state 
highway was completed, the committee addressed 
itself to the duty assigned to it. The exact lo- 
cality, as nearly as it could be ascertained, had 
first to be fixed. The Rev. Edward G. Porter, 
formerly pastor of the Lexington church, was on 
this point the best informed authority. His as- 
sistance was asked, and, in May, 1898, the com- 
mittee, in company with Mr. Porter, made a thor- 
ough examination of the ground. They found 
that, since 1775, the road east of the point gen- 
erally designated as that where Revere and his 
companions were halted, had been re-located, and 
the lower land north of the road bore marks of 
considerable change, as the result of drainage and 
cultivation. By following the course of the origi- 
nal road, and careful examination of the neigh- 
boring ground, it became apparent, however, where 
a patrol sent on such a military errand would 
unquestionably have posted itself. This locality, 
concerning the correctness of which it could be a 
question of only a few yards at most, was accord- 
ingly selected as the site for the memorial. The 
stone to which the bronze tablet is bolted is Quincy 
granite. It was put in position April 18, 1899. 
(Town-book, 1898-99, pp. 64, 6^.) The inscrip- 
tion on the tablet, prepared by the committee, is 
as follows : — 

232 



The Paul Revere Tablet 
(p. 230) 



NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS 

AT THIS POINT, 

ON THE OLD CONCORD ROAD AS IT THEN WAS, 

ENDED THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF 

PAUL REVERE. 

HE HAD, AT ABOUT TWO o'CLOCK OF THE MORNING 

OF APRIL 19, 1775, THE NIGHT BEING CLEAR AND THE 

MOON IN ITS THIRD QUARTER, GOT THUS FAR ON HIS 

WAY FROM LEXINGTON TO CONCORD, ALARMING THE 

INHABITANTS AS HE WENT, WHEN HE AND HIS 

COMPANIONS, WILLIAM DAWES, OF BOSTON, AND DR. 

SAMUEL PRESCOTT, OF CONCORD, WERE SUDDENLY 

HALTED BY A BRITISH PATROL, WHO HAD STATIONED 

THEMSELVES AT THIS BEND OF THE ROAD. DAWES, 

TURNING BACK, MADE HIS ESCAPE. PRESCOTT, 

CLEARING THE STONE WALL, AND FOLLOWING A PATH 

KNOWN TO HIM THROUGH THE LOW GROUND, REGAINED 

THE HIGHWAY AT A POINT FURTHER ON, AND GAVE THE 

ALARM AT CONCORD. REVERE TRIED TO REACH THE 

NEIGHBORING WOOD, BUT WAS INTERCEPTED BY 

A PARTY OF OFFICERS ACCOMPANYING THE PATROL, 

DETAINED AND KEPT IN ARREST. PRESENTLY 

HE WAS CARRIED BY THE PATROL BACK 

TO LEXINGTON, THERE RELEASED, AND THAT 

MORNING JOINED HANCOCK AND ADAMS. 

THREE MEN OF LEXINGTON, SANDERSON, 

BROWN AND LORING, STOPPED AT AN EARLIER 

HOUR OF THE NIGHT BY THE SAME PATROL, 

WERE ALSO TAKEN BACK WITH REVERE. 



ROLL OF SOLDIERS 



ROLL OF SOLDIERS 



REVOLUTIONARY WAR 



List of a company of minute-men under the command of Captain 
William Smith in Colonel Abijah Peirce's regiment of minute- 
men, who entered the service April 19, 1775: — 



Abbott, Joseph 
Abbott, Nehemiah 
Adams, Abel 
Adams, Joel 
Baker, Jacob, Jr. 
Baker, James 
Baker, Nathaniel 
Billings, Daniel 
Billings, Nathan 
Billings, Timothy 
Blodgett, Thomas 
Brooks, Benjamin 
Brooks, Joshua, Jr. 
Brown, Daniel 
Brown, Ebenezer 
Brown, Nathan, Jr. 
Child, Daniel 
Child, Joshua, Jr. 
Dakin, Samuel, Jr. 
Farrar, Humphrey 



Farrar, Samuel 
Fiske, David 
Foster, Jacob 
Gage, Jonathan 
Gage, Isaac 
Gearfield, John 
Gove, Nathaniel 
Harrington, Daniel 
Hartwell, Isaac 
Hartwell, John 
Hartwell, Samuel 
Hoar, Samuel 
Hosmer, Daniel 
Hosmer, William 
Mason, Elijah 
Mason, Joseph 
Mead, Abijah 
Munroe, Abijah 
Parks, Abraham 
Parks, Ebenezer 



Parks, James 
Parks, John 
Parks, Jonas 
Parks, Willard 
Parks, William 
Peirce, Abraham 
Peirce, Joseph 
Reed, Artemas 
Smith, Jesse 
Smith, Jonathan 
Smith, William 
Stone, Gregory, Jr. 
Tidd, Nathan 
Thorning, John 
Wellington, Elijah 
Wesson, John 
Wesson, John, Jr. 
Wheat, Joseph 
Wheeler, Enos 
Whitney, Solomon 



List of a company of militia commanded by Captain John Hartwell 
in Colonel Eleazar Brooks's regiment, called down for the fortify- 
ing of the Dorchester Hills, March 4, 1776: — 



Abbott, Joseph 
Abbott, Nehemiah 
Adams, Abel 
Adams, Bulkley 



Adams, Edward 
Adams, James 
Bacon, Noah 
Baker, Amos 

237 



Baker, Nathaniel 
Billings, Daniel 
Billings, Joseph 
Billings, Timothy 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 



Bond, Samuel 
Bowman, Edmund 
Brooks, Ephraim 
Brooks, Ephraim, Jr. 
Brooks, Joshua 
Brooks, Noah 
Brooks, Stephen 
Brooks, Timothy 
Brown, Daniel 
Brown, Ephraim 
Brown, Nathan 
ChHd, Abel 
Child, Amos 
Child, Elisha 
Child, Joshua 
Dakin, Samuel 



Farrar, Humphrey 
Farrar, Samuel 
Foster, Jacob 
Foster, Jonathan 
Flint, Ephraim 
Hartwell, Isaac 
Hartwell, John 
Hartwell, Samuel 
Hoar, Samuel 
Lander, John 
Mason, Jonas 
Middlesex, Salem 
Miles, James 
Munroe, Abijah 
Munroe, Isaac 
Parks, Benjamin 



Parks, Eleazar 
Parks, Isaac 
Parks, Josiah 
Parks, Willard 
Pierce, Isaac 
Pierce, Joseph 
Pierce, Joseph, Jr. 
Savage, Jube 
Stone, Gregory 
Stone, Joshua 
Stone, Timothy 
Tidd, Nathan 
Weston, Nathan 
Wheat, Joseph 
Wheeler, Enos 
Willington, Elisha 



List of men who served at other times in the war for a longer or 
shorter period: — 



Abbott, Abiel 
Abbott, Joseph, Tr. 
Adams, Amos 
Adams, Asa 
Adams, James, Jr. 
Adams, Joel 
Adams, Joseph 
Allen, Phineas 
Avery, Samuel 
Bacon, Joseph 
Bacon, Samuel 
Baker, Samuel 
Billings, Abel 
Billings, Israel 
Billings, Joseph, Jr. 
Billings, Nathan 
Bond, Jonas 
Bond, William 
Brooks, Aaron 



Brooks, Abner 
Brooks, Benjamin 
Brooks, Daniel 
Brooks, Eleazer 
Brooks, Joshua, Jr. 
Brooks, Levi 
Brooks, Noah 
Brooks, Stephen 
Brooks, Timothy 
Brown, Benjamin 
Brown, Ebenezer 
Brown, Joseph 
Brown, Timothy 
Cabot, Edward 
Child, Daniel 
Colborn, Joseph 
Colborn, Nathaniel 
Conant, John 
Farrar, Daniel 
238 



Farrar, Samuel 
Farrar, John 
Farrar, Nehemiah 
Farrar, Zebediah 
Flint, John 
Gage, Isaac 
Gage, Jonathan 
Garfield, Abraham 
Garfield, John 
Gove, John 
Hagar, John 
Harrington, Daniel 
Hoar, Brister 
Hoar, Leonard 
Hoar, Samuel 
Knowlton, Jeremiah 
Lawrence, William, Jr. 
Mason, Elijah 
Mason, Joseph, Jr. 



ROLL OF SOLDIERS 



Mathias, Abner 
Mead, Abijah 
Mead, Jonathan 
Mead, Tilly 
Merriam, James 
Munroe, Josiah 
Munroe, Micah 
Nelson, Josiah 
Page, Jonathan 
Parker, Joseph 
Parks, Aaron 
Parks, David 
Parks, James 
Parks, John 



Parks, Jonas 
Parks, Joseph 
Parks, Leonard 
Pierce, Abijah 
Pierce, Abraham 
Pierce, Jonas 
Reed, Artemas 
Richardson, Abner 
Robinson, Keen 
Sharon, Peter 
Smith, Jesse 
Smith, Jonathan 
Smith, William 



WAR OF 1812 



Thorning, John 
Thorning, William 
Tower, Jonathan, Jr. 
Weston, Abraham 
Weston, Daniel 
Weston, John 
Weston, Jonathan 
Weston, Zechariah 
Wheeler, Edmund 
Wheeler, John 
Whitney, Solomon 
Whittaker, Jonas 
Willington, Elijah 



Babcock, Rufus 
Billings, John 
Brownell, John 
Coburn, James W. 
Davis, David A. 



Esty, Stephen 
Hayden, Artemas 
Hoar, Leonard, Jr. 
Hoar, William 



Jones, William 
Miller, James 
Nelson, John 
Weston, Daniel 



Aitkins, John 
Bemis, Frank E. 
Brown, Francis C. 
Buckley, John 
Bussey, Benjamin F. 
Calvey, George B. 
Cousins, Nathaniel F. 
Deering, Eugene 
Freeman, James B. 
Fulsom, George W. 
Gay, Howard E. 
Golding, James H. 
Gorman, Stephen 
Graves, Ezekiel E. 



CIVIL WAR 

Green, Henry C. 
Hartshorn, Geo. A. 
Hayden, James F. 
Hayden, Thomas W. 
Haynes, Daniel F. 
Haynes, Edward 
Hill, James 
Hoar, Franklin 
Jenkins, Silas 
Johnson, Albert 
Jones, Franklin 
Linaugh, Thomas 
Messer, William 
Parker, Thomas J 

239 



Phillips, James A. 
Russell, Isaac 
Sherman, Geo. E. 
Smith, Jabez 
Snell, Charles E. 
Stone, Cornelius 
Stone, Edward 
Tasker, John 
Walker, James A. 
Warren, Henry 
Washburn, Albert 
Wellington, Elijah J 
West, James E. 
Weston, Geo. F. 



THE TOWN OF LINCOLN 



SPANISH WAR 

Brooks, Wallace M. Foreman, Charles F. Moller, Joseph V. 
Corrigan, James Hart, Joseph S. Snelling, Howard 

Dempsey, John J. 

Note. — The lists of soldiers who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 
1812, and the Civil War are taken from William F. Wheeler's carefully prepared 
lists in his sketch of Lincoln in the " History of Middlesex County," compiled by 
Hurd, Vol. II. 

Information concerning the soldiers who served in the Spanish War can be ob- 
tained at the Adjutant General's office in the State House. 





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